


family will follow you anywhere and back

by pastelfalcon



Series: The Family Web Series [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Spider-Man (Ultimateverse), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Americaw Family, Canon-Typical Violence, Established Relationship, F/F, F/M, Foster Care, Grief/Mourning, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, Police Brutality, Protests, Superheroes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-06-16
Updated: 2014-08-12
Packaged: 2018-02-04 23:19:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 37,544
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1797031
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pastelfalcon/pseuds/pastelfalcon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Sam and Steve – the most well-adjusted motherfuckers Nick Fury knows – adopt Miles Morales just to steal Tony Stark’s thunder, according to literally no one except Tony Stark himself. </p><p>There is subsequently a lot of Clark Kenting, coffee drinking, mixed signals, and unnecessary public displays of affection, along with the occasional drunk Darcy and severely overworked Maria Hill. Oh and they save NYC from a virtually invincible goo monster with massive fangs and claws that can swallow a man whole. (And it has tentacles, don’t forget the tentacles.) </p><p>5 years post-CATWS, only partially USM compliant (you need not know anything about USM to read.) On Hiatus until October 6th.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**BEFORE NOW**

“I want you to move to New York with me,” is the first thing out of Captain America’s mouth when Sam gets home from the VA, pissed about budget cuts and traffic and his sister blowing his phone up because she wants to talk about American Idol. “The Avengers – Fury thinks it’s better if we’re all based in the same place.”

Sam pauses in the doorway, partially toed out of his sneaker. He’d declined Fury’s offer of joining the team six months ago when he and Steve had made it back to the states with the Winter Soldier. Too many responsibilities back home and not enough patience to share the skies with Tony Stark and the newest incarnation of SHIELD. Sam was a soldier, but orders coming from a dickbag one-percenter and a previously HYDRA-infested branch of the government now in its toddler stage of rebirth weren’t orders he wanted to be taking.

“You don’t have to join the initiative,” Steve says, and he drops into a crouch in front of Sam to loosen the laces on his sneakers and remove them for him. He lifts his eyes slowly, catching Sam’s gaze with a resolute stare that wouldn’t be out of place on a recruitment poster. “But I’d love for you to come anyway. I… want to move in together,” he adds, and his expression melts into his most sheepish smile. And Steve Rogers has no shortage of smile options in his manipulation arsenal.

 _Damn_.

“Steve,” Sam breathes, shaking his head with the beginnings on a grin on his lips. He gets his fingers into Steve’s warm blonde hair, fisting it tight to give his boyfriend’s head a little shake. “Man, what are you thinkin’?”

“Of a future with you, soldier,” Steve says easily, his smile getting brighter by the second.

“Since that’s pretty much all he thinks about,” James commentates from the shadows in the living room entryway, arms folded as he leans against the doorframe and watches them. Old habits die hard. “Say yes so we can find a place with thicker walls.”

“Hey,” Sam lifts his chin, eyebrow arching sharply, “Ain’t nobody told you to invite yourself into my house, James. You eat my cooking, you listen to my lovin’. That’s basic roommate code.”

“I know you love your job,” Steve continues, a little pinker in the face for James’s teasing but otherwise undaunted by their side conversation. “I know you love Washington, and I can’t ask you to leave everything here behind. But…”

“But I also love you,” Sam finishes with an agreeing bob of his head, smirk melting into an incredulous grin at how bold his man’s become. He tightens his grip and shakes Steve’s head again playfully. “And you know I’d follow you anywhere, man. That was established awhile back.”

“So that’s a yes?”

“If your smile gets any brighter the whole damn solar system’s gonna start following you around too, sunshine,” Sam teases, releasing his hold to pet his fingers through the plush press of Steve’s hair, fond and soothing both. “Yeah, that’s a yes. But I’m picking the place out.”

\- - - 

**NOW**

The SUV comes to an abrupt stop in front of a two-story brown brick house, the vehicle’s sleek black form reflected in the six curtained windows that occupy the front of the building. The cement stoop is wide, potted bushes taking up residence on either side of the front door, white lights stringing their tufted branches. There’s a literal white picket fence framing the small (but expansive for NYC) yard, the front gate left partially ajar: a signal.

Former Director Fury steps out of the SUV quickly, boots hitting the sidewalk and the heavy leather of his trenchcoat falling to frame his legs as he strides towards the gate, one hand raised to the dark shades obscuring his eyes and the scar that mars the left. The SUV drives away as suddenly as it came.

He spots six cameras and two Stark-designed sensors while stepping quickly along the paved walk, but he knows there’s at least a dozen more, and probably some kind of laser too, if Tony’s been tinkering even a tenth as much as he’s wanted to since the boys moved to the city four years ago.

He hesitates in front of the door, tilting his head just enough to peer down the street in both directions; it’s an upper-class neighborhood, and everybody’s at work.

The door opens, and Sam stands there for a minute with half a frown and a mixing bowl Fury knows is hiding his piece. “Nick,” he says, and after another moment of consideration he grins, “Where you been, man?”

\- - -

Steve doesn’t sit down for the entirety of Fury’s talk, instead pacing in the open space behind the cream-colored couch that Sam sits on after he gets his cookies in the oven. “Nat said she’d checked out OsCorp before, a couple years back, but it was clean,” he says finally, stopping in his tracks and rubbing a hand over his clean-shaven chin.

“Yeah, well, even good agents sometimes miss what’s buck-ass nude in front of them,” Fury grunts, leaning back in the comfortable armchair he’d chosen across from Sam. A coffee mug dangles in his loose grip, still billowing steam. “But whether OsCorp really intended to let its dirty laundry fall into the hands of a teenage civilian, well.”

“You said there were three people bitten?” Steve asks, looking up from the fireplace on the far wall.

“Three confirmed bites, two known casualties, now that we know exactly what the hell we're looking at,” Fury confirms with a nod of his head. “The survivor hasn’t exactly been hard to notice, as these things go.”

“Spider-Man,” Sam says with an uncontrollable grin, his tongue briefly flicking over his teeth in amusement. “Man, shoulda known he’d be a kid, dressin’ like that.”

Fury arches an eyebrow. “Two out of three people in this room like putting on pretty outfits and taking down bad guys too.”

“Whereas you just do it in leather and an eyepatch, yeah, I got that,” Sam chuckles, sprawling an arm over the back of the couch.

“That kid’s been on the street for a year,” Steve murmurs, his voice growing stern, “Why the hell hasn’t SHIELD brought him in?”

“Because SHIELD doesn’t technically exist anymore,” Fury says tightly, drawing his sunglasses off to meet Steve’s accusatory gaze, “And because until now, we didn’t know where Spider-Man came from or that he was a minor. We just knew he was some spandex whackadoo beating up purse-snatchers and pervs. Forgive me if alien invasions and international threats came a little higher up on our to-do list than some dude in PJ’s cleanin’ up the streets in New York City.”

Steve’s jaw clenches, but he doesn’t protest it further, his hand balling into a fist so he can rest his knuckles on the wall and lean into it. His eyes parse the framed pictures and knickknacks accumulated on the mantel above the fireplace. “So what do we do about it now?”

Fury’s lips curve into a slow smile, and just as quickly, the smile on Sam’s lips fades and Steve’s contemplative expression becomes stiffer.

“Steve, man, I don’t like when he smiles like that,” Sam says warily.

Fury reaches into the front of his jacket and produces several folders in various states of stuffed, tossing them down on the coffee table with a flourish. When nobody moves, he inclines his head expectantly, and Sam hesitates before snatching the folder on the top of the file and looking it over.

“Shit,” Sam breathes, “He’s an orphan.”

Steve steps around the couch, looking between Fury’s sobering expression and the paperwork in Sam’s hand. “What?”

“Says here his mom died a few weeks ago. Errant police fire when Spider-Man was taking down some bank robber.” He pauses and shakes his head, “Rio Morales. I've been to a couple'a the protests in Harlem.”

“They aren’t holding the officer accountable,” Steve recalls softly, sitting down on the couch and reaching for a different file.

Sam whistles low and bitter. “Some hothead with a gun and a badge, wanted to take Spidey in along with the robber. Morales stepped in the way and tried to tell the cop to cool off, he didn’t do anything wrong, but the guy got agitated and supposedly shot her on accident. _Six times_.” He scowls at the memory, flicking through the paperwork to escape pictures of her smiling face. “White dude, barely on the beat for a year. He called her ‘a mouthy señorita’ to the press and then tried to clarify later he just meant she was ‘disrespectful and talkative’.”

Sam flicks the file back onto the pile and sits back on the couch, rubbing his temples aggressively with his eyes closed. “That was his mom. I can’t even imagine what the kid’s gotta be feeling.”  
“It says here his father is missing?” Steve asks quietly.

Fury takes a long sip of his coffee. “As far as we can tell, Rio Morales was unaware of her son’s costume hobby. The working theory right now is the boy either fessed up to dad after the fact, or his father figured it out himself. He was a vocal anti-Avengers advocate, starting up way back in the day with Manhattan.”

“But he can’t possibly blame his son,” Steve says immediately, eyebrows furrowed as he flips quickly through the rest of the file, “He shouldn’t be doing this in the first place but Morales stepped between him and the officer. That was her call.”

“Not everybody’s equipped to handle grief,” Sam murmurs, reaching out to grip Steve’s knee. “Some people just want somebody to blame. He found one.”

“Grief is no excuse to abandon your child,” Steve grits out, smacking the file shut and throwing it on top of Sam’s. “Has anyone been looking for him?”

“Not yet,” Fury says, a finger tracing the mouth of his coffee cup. “But the boy’s in a group home right now. He meets the preliminary criteria for foster care.”

“So soon?” Sam asks sharply, and Fury nods.

Steve looks up again, anger fading into slow surprise, his eyes not quite focusing on Fury’s intentionally casual sitting position. He leans forward, elbows slowly falling to rest on his knees and his hands coming together, knuckles resting over his open mouth. Sam’s hand rubs across his shoulders consolingly. “You want us to take him.”

Fury eyes him carefully. “I want him in a home that’s equipped to handle a grieving boy with super powers.”

“SHIELD wants him,” Steve whispers, but there’s the beginnings of a threat there, sharp and terse.

“Maybe in the future,” Fury admits freely, setting down his now-empty coffee cup. “But this boy can’t go to a civilian home. My intel says he’s still figuring out his abilities. He has enemies, Cap. Big and bad ones. Bigger and badder every day, with the world going straight to hell like it’s been since the sky over Manhattan cracked open and started shitting aliens. He needs somebody to look up to, to protect him.”

“He needs parents,” Sam adds in partial disagreement.

Fury snorts and smirks. “You two are the most well-adjusted motherfuckers in this goddamn city. You’ve been in a relationship for what, five years now? He’s Captain America and you’re the Falcon and you still planned a baby shower for Potts and have date nights on Thursday. You’ve got cookies burning in the goddamn oven for christsakes.”

“Shit,” Sam grunts, getting up from the couch and sprinting out of the room, “Shit, shit, shit. C’mon, man!”

“Steve,” Fury says slowly, leaning even further forward and fixing Steve with his good eye imploringly, “This kid needs you. He needs you both.”

Sam’s still shouting in the kitchen about macaroons when Steve says, “We’ll do it.”

\- - -

“I always liked the name Miles,” Sam says against Steve’s shoulder, petting his fingers through the warm tuft of short hair at the base of Steve’s neck. He’s sprawled half on top of the super soldier, a leg thrown over Steve’s thighs and nothing but drying sweat between them. “It was one of the names my sister debated on before she found out she was having another girl.”

“You’re awfully calm about this,” Steve says a little dubiously.

Sam just laughs and nips his shoulder. “Man, we’ve been over this, remember? I’ll follow you anywhere. Laying the smackdown on some Nazis, chasing Barnes across the globe, moving to New York… Jumping into raising a teenage boy who shoots webs and can lift a car isn’t that far off from what I’ve been doing since we met.”

“I love you, Sam,” Steve mumbles, swallowing hard enough that Sam can hear it, “God, I love you.”

“Yeah, well, you’re lucky I love you too, because anybody else woulda ditched this ride a long time ago, even if the sex is fantastic.” Sam grins as Steve shudders a little beneath him, both from laughter and nerves. “We got this, Steve. I know we do.”

Steve shifts, lifting his head and turning his face to catch Sam’s mouth in a slow, wet, and comfortably awkward-angled kiss. “Do me again?” he asks, soft and rough against Sam’s lips.

 Sam snorts loudly. “'Do me again' he says, like he didn’t just wear my non-serumed-up ass out. You know some of us gotta wait more than two seconds after coming our brains out before our dicks are ready for action again, man.”

“I can help you out there,” Steve says with a grin, giving Sam another peck before wriggling out from under him and slinking down the bed.

“Oh I bet you can,” Sam says mockingly, rolling over onto his back and dropping a hand into Steve’s short hair, propping his own head up so he can watch. “You be careful with that thing, it’s gonna start chafing.”

Steve’s reply is a pleasant hum, hands sliding up Sam’s thighs to frame his hips as his cheeks hollow out and he slurps noisily.

“Shit, yeah, okay, you’re more helpful than you look, Cap,” Sam breathes out, head tilting back as he huffs a groan. “Shit… shit, shit, shit…”

Steve pops free with a wet noise, licking his lips way too casually for a man that can deep throat eight and a half inches like it’s just part of the super soldier package. “What, is something burning again?” he asks mischievously.

“Man, shut the hell up and get back to what you were doing,” Sam says crossly, cuffing Steve on the side of the head.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kudos and comments are my lifeblood.


	2. Chapter 2

“You don’t look _half_ as dorky as I thought you would,” Sam teases as he steps up behind Steve in the bathroom mirror’s reflection. He reaches up slowly, almost reverently, fingertips coasting over the thick black plastic extending from Steve’s ears.

At Steve’s incredulous frown, Sam grins, quick and wide. “The hipster thing works for you.”

Steve snorts but continues to stare at his fake glasses in the mirror. “Is that so,” he says musingly.

“Yeah. That’s so.” Sam’s bearded chin drops to rest on Steve’s shoulder. “We got this, Steve.”

\- - -

It’s a long drive from the group home upstate to his foster place Brooklyn. Initially the caseworker tries to make upbeat small talk but Miles’s resolutely monosyllable answers eventually dissuade her. They drive in silence for a long time, the A/C cranked against the steady bake of early summer in New York City.

He has two duffel bags in the trunk and a backpack at his side, crammed with the last remnants of who he had been before becoming another social services case number. His first caseworker had offered to arrange for all of his bedroom furniture to be put in storage so his new guardians could pick it up, but crawling into the bed that his mother used to sit on and tease him about never making when she’s no longer around to do it seems wrong. He’ll just stick with whatever stuff his foster caregivers give him.

He won’t say foster _parents_ , because he doesn’t have any parents now. One is buried in the dirt in a pretty, polished box like the one she used to keep her jewelry in, and the other one left him in the middle of a sunny afternoon after telling him in no uncertain terms that he deserved to be left. Miles lost his parents. He doesn’t want or need new ones.

And his dad might come back. He might give Miles another chance to explain, another chance to admit it is his fault and he’ll do whatever he can to make it right, just don’t leave me behind –

“Almost there,” the caseworker says gently.

Miles hunkers deeper into the loose drape of his Avengers hoodie and keeps his head down for the rest of the ride.

\- - -

_Are you at your new house yet? What does it look like?_

_Big house in a really nice neighborhood. Way nicer than mine._

_Your apartment was really nice. I stopped by again last night but I don’t think your dad’s been back._

_Ok._

_Are you okay?_

_Yeah._

_I miss you._

_Miss u too Katie._

\- - -

“You have a cell phone,” is the first (stupid) thing Steve says after he comes outside to get Miles’s bags. It’s grossly hot out and the caseworker fans herself with some paperwork as she follows him inside, but Miles is wearing a heavy sweatshirt with the hood drawn up. When he gives Steve a look, his face is mostly shadowed and Steve can’t tell what his expression is beyond the tight set of his mouth.

Steve cringe-smiles awkwardly and closes the door behind them.

“The bill autodrafts from my dad’s account,” Miles mumbles and he stashes the phone back in his hoodie pouch. His tone is a far cry from friendly, but it’s a lot less hostile than it could be. “There’s still some money in there.”

The second (stupid) thing Steve says is, “We can pay for it.”

“Yeah, okay,” Miles answers stoically from beneath the curtain of his cotton hood, scuffing his sneaker on the hardwood floor.

“And where is the other Mr. Wilson?” the caseworker asks brightly like she knows exactly how much Steve is messing this up. Her rounded, flushed cheeks are raised on a smile that’s probably taken years of working with scared, angry children to perfect.

“He’s a counselor at the Harlem Community Clinic,” Steve says quickly, seizing on the topic with white knuckled desperation. He bounces back on his heels a bit and shoves his hands into his pockets to keep from rubbing his palms on his pants – a gesture he’d picked up as a nervous kid with sweaty hands. “He’s got a group that’s running a little late,” he explains, glancing at Miles apprehensively, “But he’ll be back soon.”

“Would you like me to wait until Sam gets back, dear?” she asks Miles kindly, touching his slumped shoulder to get his attention. “I know you spent a little more time with him when we were doing paperwork–”

“S’fine,” Miles says like it’s automatic, curt and almost under his breath. He turns towards Steve’s general direction, still hiding his face. “Where’s my room?”

“Up the stairs to the left, it’s the door on the end,” Steve answers quickly, looking briefly hopeful, “We uh, we thought you’d like the bedroom with the big window seat.”

“Yeah, okay,” Miles replies in the same bland mutter.

“Would you like to go lie down?” the caseworker suggests tenderly, “It was a long ride.”

Miles’s head jerks in what is apparently intended as a nod because he’s then turning and jogging up the stairs in just shy of a full-out run. His backpack bounces against his shoulder as he goes. A moment later, they both wince a little at the abrupt slam of a door and the subsequent thud of the backpack being dropped on a carpeted floor.

Steve’s shoulders slump in total, heartbroken defeat. “Well, that could have gone better,” he says with a weary smile.

 “He’s still very upset,” the caseworker murmurs.

Steve sighs tiredly and rubs the back of his neck, bashfully attempting to make his smile genuine and mostly managing it. “He’s got every right to be,” he admits, and leans back against the stairway railing, tilting his head back to peer up towards Miles’s exit route. “Sam’s good with him. He’ll have cooled off by the time Sam gets here, they can talk it out some.”

She nods slowly and offers a smile of her own. “You’re _both_ going to do just fine, Mr. Wilson,” she assures him warmly, giving his arm a firm squeeze.

\- - -

“You have _two gay dads_!” Ganke’s pixelated face exclaims from Miles’s laptop, both hands lifted and gesturing in obvious dismissal. “Do you know how _cool_ having gay parents is?”

“They’re not my parents,” Miles says sourly. He’s sprawled out on his stomach on his new bed, not looking at his screen but instead picking at the sticky residue of a partially removed sticker on the keyboard.

“Sorry,” mumbles Ganke.

“They’re my… foster folks,” Miles mumbles, partially in clarification and partially in apology. His fingernail digs at the papery goop, the last remains of the Iron Man sticker. “Just until my dad comes back.”

“Miles…” Ganke starts, dangling on the edge of a conversation they’ve had at least half a dozen times already.

Probably more than that.

“See you at school, man,” Miles blurts, abruptly signing out of Skype. He smacks his laptop shut and shoves it under his pillow, bitterness and frustration welling up in his chest until he can hardly stand to breathe. He rolls over, shoving his cheek on top of his pillow like he can bury his thoughts along with his computer.

For the first time in weeks, he falls asleep before he can start crying.

\- - -

“Miles?” comes Sam’s voice through the door some time later. There’s dull orange sunlight creeping in between the loosely slanted blinds on Miles’s huge bedroom window. “Hey, man. Sorry I wasn’t home when you got here.”

“It’s okay,” Miles says loud enough to be heard, but he doesn’t get up to open the door.

“Look I know you gotta be tired, so we’ll skip sitting down together for dinner and I’ll just make you some mac and cheese and you can eat up here, a’ight?” Sam pauses, clearing his throat lightly. “Hang in there, little man.”

Miles doesn’t say anything back, so Sam shuffles away from the door; he can hear the man’s footsteps as they head down the stairs. He sits up, peeling off the sweaty cotton of his hoodie and flinging it onto the floor where Steve sets his bags sometime during his nap.

His room is mostly empty, just a twin bed, a dresser, and a desk, all painted plain white and meticulously untouched. Steve had said he wanted Miles to decorate his room however he wanted so they’d left it bare on purpose. Even the closet is vacant, empty hangers pushed in a tidy line on the bar. It’s creepy.

There’s a knock at the door and Miles almost jumps out of his skin. “Miles?” Steve asks from the hallway, with the same soft, concerned voice he’d used before. “Sam said you prolly wanted to eat in your room, but… You sure you don’t want to come downstairs? We could go out, even.”

“ _No_ ,” Miles says sharply, barely able to keep from shouting it. “No thanks,” he adds after a second, scowling at the closed door for making him feel guilty for being rude.

“I just thought maybe you wouldn’t want to be alone,” Steve offers quietly.

“ _No thanks_ ,” Miles repeats firmly, letting some of his anger heat his tone.

“Alright.” There’s another pause, and then Steve says, “I lost… everyone when I was a young. If I hadn’t had my friends keeping an eye out for me…”

“I didn’t lose my dad,” Miles says sharply, angrily balling his hands in the plain white sheets on his bed. “And I don’t need _anybody_ keeping an eye out for me. Leave me alone.”

If Steve apologizes – and Miles is sure that he does – he doesn’t hear it, laptop shoved off the bed and head crammed up beneath his pillow. When Sam brings him some food a few minutes later, Miles ignores him entirely, waiting until Sam sets the plate on his desk and leaves before he lets himself take a breath.

\- - -

By the time Miles gets around to eating the macaroni and cheese, it’s lukewarm, but he scarfs down the entire plate and chugs the glass of milk that comes with it.

\- - -

“He still hasn’t gone back to sleep,” Steve says, distressed, as he paces their bedroom with quick, tight strides in a ruler-perfect line. Sam’s sitting up against the headboard, reading over something on his ipad in the dim light of their bedside table lamps, blanket drawn up over his thighs. “It’s been hours since he took that nap. It’s two in the morning. Should I check on him again?”

“You’ve already checked on him six times since dinner,” Sam reminds him, lightly reproachful. “You’re lucky he hasn’t webbed your head to the ceiling by now.”

“He wouldn’t expose his secret like that,” Steve says distractedly, missing out on the fact that his boyfriend was kidding.

“Steve,” Sam says exasperatedly, setting aside his work and sitting up. When Steve doesn’t stop roaming back and forth like a caged animal, Sam raises his voice, “Steven Wilson, mild-mannered head of Stark Industries security, if you don’t get your newly parental ass in this bed, I’m gonna drag you by your perfectly normal and non-superpowered ear.”

“And I don’t like lying to him, either,” Steve says, latching onto the topic again as he stands apprehensively at the foot of the bed. “I never wanted to agree to that.”

“Social services wasn’t gonna give him to an Avenger and his boyfriend with wings,” Sam reminds him lightly. “Now _sit down_. You’re making me dizzy, and he ain’t gonna go to sleep with you stomping around one room over all night.”

Steve finally relents and gets into bed, allowing Sam to pluck the fake glasses from his face and drag the blanket up around him. “He’s angry, and scared,” Steve says, stressed, running his hand through his hair repeatedly.

“Of course he’s angry and scared, man,” Sam says patiently, the beginnings of a smile on his lips as he gets his hands on Steve’s back and starts in on a shoulder rub. Steve groans shortly and closes his eyes. “He’s allowed to be angry and scared. You gotta let him have those feelings, they’re his. You can’t help him feel safe until you give him the room to feel alone.”

“That’s terrible,” Steve mumbles, head tilting back to rest against Sam’s accommodatingly raised chin.

“That’s _healing_ ,” Sam murmurs softly, thumbs digging into knotted muscle until Steve is putty in his hands.

\- - -

When Miles comes down for something to eat, it’s already past ten and Steve’s left the house for work, getting into a black corvette with a pretty redheaded woman who smiles knowingly at the window Miles peeks out of like she knows he’s watching her. The kitchen is big, light cream tiles buffed to shine beneath his bare feet as he pads over to the double-door refrigerator.

“Hey there,” drawls somebody behind him, and Miles falls into a half-crouch as he spins around, arms held up and ready. The man standing by the pantry laughs softly, lifting his hands in a gesture of peace. “Didn’t mean to startle you, kid. I’m just the roommate.”

“James,” Miles recalls dubiously, eyeing him as he loosens out.

“That’s right,” the man confirms with a nod that makes his sloppy ponytail bounce, grinning. “The freeloader who lives in the basement.”

“You don’t work?” Miles asks, genuinely curious and too keyed up to shut himself up.

“Only when I’m needed,” James says vaguely, moving into the kitchen slowly to pour himself a cup of coffee from the stuff already ready in the pot. “Mostly I just watch the house. The ‘Wilsons’ like taking in strays, I guess.”

Miles scowls at that, tugging open the fridge and grabbing the first drinkable liquid he comes across: a glass pitcher of orange juice. James grabs him a glass from the cupboard. “Is that why they took me in?”

James seems to realize his offense, because he frowns thoughtfully and leans back against the lengthy marble counter. “Steve likes kids, even if he doesn’t know what to do with them,” he says after a long sip, “And Sam’s got nieces he loves to death. I’m not surprised they wanted to be parents.”

“They’re not my parents,” Miles snarls, tossing his still half-full glass into the sink. It shatters in an impressive splatter of glittering splinters. “My dad’s coming back.”

James doesn’t move to clean up the glass and neither does Miles. “They might be, one day.”

“Miles?” Sam’s standing in the doorway, a paperback book in his hand. “You okay, man?”

Miles doesn’t answer immediately, assuming he’s talking to James. But when James says nothing, Miles begrudgingly mutters, “Yeah. Sorry I broke your glass.”

Sam’s frown turns into a quirked grin. “James starting shit?” he asks as he comes into the kitchen, shooing James with a flick of his hand in the man’s direction. James snorts and slides out of the way like a scolded cat. “Don’t mind his dumb ass, the filter between his brain and his _mouth_ went wonky a couple years back and his model’s too old to get a replacement part.”

Miles grins, even if it’s only a little.

“Teenagers still eat breakfast, right?” Sam questions as he plucks a pan from the hooks above the bar and twirls it by the handle before setting it on the stove. “I saw you demolished that mac I made you. Between you and Steve I’m gonna be cookin’ for a whole army.”

Miles lifts a shoulder just a fraction, looking at the floor.

Sam laughs, patting one of the stools at the bar. “Go on, have a seat. I’m about to _blow your mind_ with my pancake-making skills.”

\- - -

“I just don’t know, Buck,” Steve says, elbows on his knees as he sits on his front stoop and watches soccer moms in jogging outfits walk their dogs and newlyweds push baby strollers down the sidewalk. “Sam says I’m trying too hard but I feel like I’m not doing _enough_.”

“Hm,” James says noncommittally, sipping at a beer.

“This kid deserves so much better than what he’s gotten,” Steve says mournfully, rubbing the back of his neck. “His whole life got turned upside-down. That spider bit and killed at least two other people, but he survived. And he took what he got and he used it for good. He lost his mom and his dad just… abandoned him. Because he decided to do what he thought was the right thing.”

James grins loosely, flexing his metal fingers within their flesh-imitation glove. “And we all know why you have that soft spot for _scrawny little guys_ doing The Right Thing.”

Steve frowns but it’s mostly playful, and he butts James’s shoulder with his own. “Don’t be a dick.”

“Who, me?” James grins even wider, showing off the point of an eyetooth. “Mr. Wilson, where do you get off on an accusation like that?”

Steve laughs, and turns into the one-armed hug that James throws around his shoulder.

“I know you,” James says into his hair, voice a little husky with remembrance of how heavy that statement’s been in the past. “I know who you are and _that guy_? That guy’s gonna make a great pop.”

“Thanks, Buck.”

They pull apart and lean back against the top cement step together, James colorfully commenting on the various assets of their lady neighbors until Sam calls them in for dinner.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, this story is getting a lot of buzz! Thanks to everyone who’s commented here and on my Tumblr. It’s super overwhelming seeing how excited you guys are. I can’t wait to really get into the meat, y’all are gonna love it!
> 
> I'm going back and fixing a few minor mistakes in the first chapter. (That will probably happen every time I post a new chapter, since I edit my own stuff and I’m twice as ‘only human’ as most people.) All remaining errors are fashionably flawed.


	3. Chapter 3

Every so often during their morning run, Sam Wilson misses jogging in DC and watching it wake up beneath a rose and purple sky, sunrise beaming off the top of monuments and buildings and the birds singing him praises before he’d even worked up a sweat. New York’s mostly got a lot of pigeons and while Sam loves to hear their fat, chortled coos where they roost in the eaves at the VA over in Harlem, they’re not much for a running soundtrack.

Steve’s steady breaths beside him, however, do just fine.

They run through their neighborhood in Brooklyn, Steve usually wearing sunglasses and a hat because while most of their neighbors are too busy tripping over themselves over how great they keep the lawn to notice Captain America’s the one that helps Sam do it, you can never be too careful. They’ve formulated a good work/life balance and that includes keeping the Avengers and everything associated on the other side of the city.

Especially now that it’s not just them at the house anymore.

“How you holdin’ up?” he asks Steve as they round a corner, the distant drone of a garage door opening catching his attention but only long enough for him to locate the source and raise a hand in greeting to the sleepy but smartly dressed neighbor in question.

Steve says, “Just fine,” and Sam quirks his mouth as he recognizes that intentional obliviousness Steve likes to pull when Sam gives him a confession opener and Steve doesn’t want to take it.

“I know you can run on catnaps for like a month,” Sam says, “But we kinda agreed we weren’t gonna live like that. Like five years ago.”

“This is different,” Steve says firmly, defensive. Every muscle in his body is working not to keep him propelled but to keep him moving slow enough to stay at pace with Sam.

“A unit’s only as calm as its most agitated man,” Sam says, slowing from a run to a jog as they circle back towards home. “If you’re projecting fear and anxiety, Miles is gonna soak all that up and he doesn’t have your breadth of experience holding it all in. This isn’t a temporary thing, man. We signed up for a minimum of four years looking after this kid. You gotta learn to settle down some.”

“I have,” Steve blurts defensively. “You said so yourself. I’m doing the domestic thing just fine.”

Sam smiles in spite of himself. “I said that before we took in a teenager you’ve been shadowing for like seventy-two hours straight,” he says with good humor. “Getting up and peeking in his room when you think I’m asleep.”

Steve blushes and falters a little. “You noticed that, huh.”

“Nope, Bucky ratted you out,” Sam corrects cheerfully, “He always talks when I make bacon with his breakfast.”

“Goddamn traitor,” grumbles Steve, but he’s grinning. “Alright, alright, I get it. No more watching him sleep.”

“That’ll prolly help with the whole _desperately-trying-to-get-him-to-like-you_ thing,” Sam says, clapping Steve on the shoulder. Steve blushes but laughs, getting revenge by upping the pace with unholy ease and leaving Sam gasping and soaked with sweat by the time they’re home and the sun’s up.

\- - -

Miles kisses Kate until she’s gripping his ears and dragging him off, her cheeks flushed pink and her eyes so wide Miles can see himself reflected in them. They pant each other’s air for a long moment, Miles curling a strand of dyed bangs around his finger and Kate smiling in bashful pleasure.

“I missed you too,” Kate says breathlessly, nuzzling her pert nose against his. “Are you okay?” she asks, licking her damp lower lip and damn, she’s probably tasting them both. Miles openly stares at her mouth.

“Jeez!” Ganke hollers abruptly from behind them. His arms are thrown up in a dramatic gesture of relief, like he’s been forced to endure untold horrors. “Finally, they come up for air! I thought I was gonna be stuck finishing out the whole _school year_ before you were done.”

“Ganke,” Miles grumbles, shooting him a dirty look from around Kate’s inclined face. He drops his hands away from his girlfriend, shoving them into his pockets instead, the picture of angry embarrassment.

“I’m not the one breaking world records for lip-locking,” Ganke says reproachfully.

“Sorry,” Kate says genuinely, biting her lower lip now as she fits her fingers around Miles’s wrist. She shifts on her feet for an awkward moment before asking, in a carefully casual voice, “So, um, what are they like?”

“Who?” Miles asks blandly like he doesn’t know.

“They’re _gay_ ,” Ganke says for him, hefting his backpack higher on his shoulder, “They’re two _gay guys_. One’s a psychologist or something and the other one is some kind of body guard for Tony Stark.”

“ _Tony Stark_  needs a body guard?” Kate asks dubiously, eyebrows furrowed.

“He’s not a body guard,” Miles says crossly, “He’s head of security at the tower. And Sam’s just a counselor.”

Kate, undaunted by his irritated tone, asks, “Are they nice?”

“Sam’s cool, he said hi to me on Skype, but Steve’s a _weirdo_ and peeks into Miles’s room like a hundred times a night,” Ganke supplies loudly, eyes bulging as he speaks to indicate his creeped out stance towards bedroom snooping.

“They’re okay,” Miles mutters. “And Steve quit doing that yesterday.”

“And they have an asshole roommate who lives in the basement. He’s got hippie hair and sometimes he speaks Russian.”

“ _Ganke_!” Miles growls in exasperation, throwing up the hand Kate’s not holding. A few of the other students milling in the courtyard pause to stare at them, and Miles makes a few rude gestures until they keep walking.

He’ll probably be doing that all day, considering how long he’s been out of school and how fast word likely traveled in his absence. A kid with a dead mom and a dad who skipped town is open season for staring.

“It sounds really… interesting.” Kate bites her lip and smiles, but out of being genuine rather than awkwardly trying to take a forcefully positive outlook. “At least you didn’t get stuck with a boring normal couple,” she muses.

Miles’s lips curve at that and he pulls his hand out of his pocket so he can return Kate’s grip. “They kinda _are_ , though. They dance to old music on the radio and cook together and we watch a movie after dinner like every night. They’re always cuddling or kissing, it’s gross.”

Kate blinks, her expression surprised. “Because they’re…?”

“What?” Miles blinks back before hurrying to correct her, “No, _no_ , it’s not about _that_. They’re just really mushy.”

Kate smiles and squeezes his hand. “Mushy’s okay sometimes,” she says sweetly, and lays her head on his shoulder.

Ganke makes a high-pitched noise of distress behind them as they walk back to class.

\- - -

Steve ducks beneath a burst of gunfire, sweeping his arm up to bash the would-be shooter under the chin with his shield, sending the man toppling back with a choked-off groan. He leaps over him and lets the shield fly, watching it take out the rotating blades on the getaway helicopter, sparks and flames bursting in a noisy whoosh.

Iron Man shoots past him, leaving a gust of wind in his wake. He zips around the helicopter as it drops back onto the roof like an injured animal, wrenching open the side door with a noisy crunch of metal and plucking the well-dressed business man inside from his belted seat.

“You know I am so glad you’re joining Pepper and I in the land of parenthood,” Tony’s tinny voice says in his ear.

Steve snorts and picks his shield up from the cement landing pad.

“Seriously,” Tony says after he flies back and drops their target into the waiting crowd of SHIELD agents, dropping to his metal-booted feet beside Steve as they walk away from the littering of unconscious bodies. “We couldn’t be happier that you’re cramping our newly parental style. Stealing what little thunder Thor allows us mortals to have.”

“We didn’t take him in because you had a baby,” Steve says with a roll of his eyes.

“Really?” Tony asks as he turns to walk backwards, iron mask popping open so he can fix Steve with a squinted eye of distrust. “Because it seems to me if you’d even been _interested_ in adoption before last week, you’d have _mentioned_ it to me, especially with the whole shower planning, official godparent stuff you’ve been up to.”

“We're friends, you're not entitled to every detail of my life," Steve says roughly, "You know not everyone is obligated to play into your god complex, Stark.”

“No but cooperation is highly appreciated,” says Tony, grinning quick before looking dubiously curious again, “So if this wasn't out of bouncing baby envy, then what spurned you two on, huh?”

“Impulse,” Steve sneers, blanketing his nervousness with irritation. He and Sam had agreed from the get-go not to discuss Miles’s vigilante history with anyone else unless absolutely necessary.

“Impulse, huh,” Tony croons thoughtfully, pretending to stroke his goatee like he’s mulling it over. “ _Extra_ impulse-y, considering you submitted the application at three fifteen in the morning under a false name, listing _me_  - the guy you couldn't be bothered to tell - as your _employer_.”

“Tony,” Steve grits out.

“I mean, technically, I _am_ , since I fund this team, but still. Fishy stuff.”

“I thought I asked you not to monitor what I do outside the Avengers,” Steve says in a low warning tone, eyes sharp when he looks at Tony through his mask.

“You _asked_ ,” Tony agrees mildly.

“Look,” Steve growls, turning abruptly and raising a gloved finger to Tony’s face. Tony raises his eyebrows but he doesn’t move, a cautious smirk playing at his lips. “This is _none of your business_ , Stark. You’ve got a family of your _own_ to worry about. Until mine comes over for dinner, you _keep the hell away from Miles_ , and you keep your _nose_ out of my life.”

Tony exhales and nods. “You got it, Captain Daddypants.”

\- - -

Steve comes to pick him up at school in a shiny Ford pickup because it’s Sam’s late day at the clinic. Miles hesitates on the sidewalk, apprehensively watching Katie wave and slip away towards the buses, Ganke throwing up a farewell thumbs-up as he trots in the same direction. He adjusts his backpack strap, fidgeting.

“Those your friends?” Steve asks lightly, stepping around the front of the car.

“Ganke and Kate,” Miles supplies, then adds, “Kate’s my girlfriend.”

Steve’s answering smile is warm and relaxed. “Yeah? She’s pretty cute. I don’t get the pink hair or the fishnets, but I’m a little out of the loop.”

Miles just shrugs and moves to the passenger side door. He waits until Steve gets back into the car and the lock pops up, then gets in silently and buckles up.

“You should have them come by for dinner sometime,” Steve suggests, glancing at him hopefully. “Maybe… maybe they can help you figure out how you want to do your room.”

“Yeah,” Miles mumbles, looking out the window.

Steve frowns, watching students amble behind his rearview mirror, waiting until they pass before sliding into reverse. “I almost dated a girl with a lip ring,” he says spontaneously.

Miles raises an eyebrow, taking the bait in spite of himself. “You dated girls?”

“I’ve dated plenty of girls,” Steve confirms, maybe going a little too fast as he pulls away from the school. “I’ve always liked both, I guess. I even had a best girl, once. She was a real spitfire, but she was also patient and kind.” He pauses and laughs at himself, adding thoughtfully, “Guess I’ve got a type, because Sam’s that way too.”

“Katie could probably kick my butt,” Miles says seriously.

Steve grins, but his tone is solemn as he says, “Those are the best kinds of women.”

\- - -

James is sitting in the living room reading a scifi novel with an unbroken spine, its glossy cover betraying it as a completely different book than the one Miles had seen him with on the stoop yesterday. He’s only ever known Judge to finish a book that thick so fast.

James says nothing when they come in, but he does put the book aside and accept the folded white takeout box Steve offers him from their collection. Miles digs in with the provided chopsticks but he’s the only one, Steve and James eating with forks Steve pilfers from the kitchen.

“I can’t cook much,” Steve admits, “And Sam’s a great cook and loves doing it, so there’s not much point in learning.”

Miles shrugs and enjoys his mouthful of rice and shrimp. He’s keeping an eye on his phone while eating, waiting for Kate to text him that she’s home from her piano lesson and ready to study together over Skype. He was out of school for weeks, and while she and Ganke kept him busy by emailing all the classwork and homework assignments he was missing so he didn’t completely lose touch, it’s still going to take some coaching to catch up.

“How was school?” Steve prompts awkwardly. James snorts a chuckle and Steve glares at him.

Miles shrugs his shoulder again and stabs a particularly robust shrimp instead of picking it up with his utensils. “Okay.”

“You sure?”

“Yup,” Miles says, keeping his voice upbeat.

Steve seems to accept the answer as good enough because he smiles contentedly and goes back to eating his own food in relaxed silence. James stares at Miles for so long it’s uncomfortable, but Miles keeps his eyes resolutely glued to his phone and pretends not to notice.

People staring at him is just becoming a thing now, Miles guesses.

\- - -

Sam comes home a full hour later than he’d originally said he would, long after Miles helped Steve throw out the demolished takeout boxes and tidy the coffee table up so Sam wouldn’t know that his house rule of no meals outside of the kitchen or dining room had been broken. Kate still isn’t home so Miles heads outside to play basketball with Sam in the driveway.

They have a basket bolted to the front of the garage over the door, but the netting looks too mint to have been used much.

“How was school?” Sam asks, taking a shot and sinking it with ease.

Miles shrugs and dribbles slowly, considering his answer. “Everyone knows what happened,” he says, mouth shifting uneasily between a frown and a scowl, “I’m the kid whose mom got shot and whose dad split the same week. I’m like a _bad omen_ or something. Everyone kept,” he pauses, holding the ball still when it bounces back into his hands, “ _Hashtag-exclamation point-email symbol thing-dollar sign_ staring.”

“I think it’s called an ‘at symbol’,” Sam says, smirking and rocking back on his heels. “Look, Miles, I’m not gonna smack your wrist for throwing out a couple _curse words_ when you’re venting.”

Miles can’t help the grin that falls in place briefly, dropping the basketball back into a quick standstill dribble. “Fucking staring,” he corrects, but his mouth tugs into a frown as he adds, “And whispering behind my back.”

“And that got under your skin,” Sam guesses lightly.

Miles nods, dribbling as he starts to head to the basket, and says, “It’s none of their business. I don’t even _know_ them.”

“People like to stare at folks who’re going through things,” Sam says musingly, moving in front of Miles to try and finagle the ball away from him. “It’s like you’re just a mirror for all their worries. Mostly it’s not even you they’re puttin’ their pity on, it’s who they’d be if they were you.”

Miles ducks under Sam’s arm and tries to sink the ball, but it hits the rim instead and falls. It bounces twice on the pavement, loud and hollow, before Sam steps over and grabs it instead. “That’s shitty,” Miles says bitterly, “I wouldn’t do that to somebody else.”

“You got friends who look at you right now and still actually see _you_ ,” Sam notes, passing him the ball. “They care about what you’re going through because they care about _you_. Stick with them and let everybody else do their thing.”

The ball hits the backboard and Miles catches it himself.

“And try to put the ball through that big red hoop up there,” Sam says with a wide grin, hands on his hips, “I don’t know if anybody’s told you but that’s how you play this game.”

Miles pulls a face and flips him off.

“Watch it, little man,” Sam says, stepping over and sweeping the ball from Miles’s grasp with ease even when the boy tries to evade him, “That permission slip I gave you for a couple swear words doesn’t protect you from _Steve_. And I’ll sell you out in a heartbeat.” He grins and takes a shot.

Miles knocks the ball out of the air and grins back. “ _Hashtag-at symbol-question mark-exclamation point_ you.”

\- - -

“He’s asking a lot of questions, Buck,” Steve says as he squints behind his fake glasses, watching closely as he squeezes a tiny bead of glue onto the plastic. He’s building a model plane, pieces piled haphazardly across his desk in the den. It’s a Howling Commandos variant of a Kittyhawk, a Christmas present from Pepper he’s been meaning to get to.

James is sitting on the den’s leather couch, one knee pulled up. “I can make him stop,” he suggests, all smooth-voiced and casual. He turns a page in his magazine.

Steve puts the glue down. “You know, I can’t tell if you’re joking or not,” he says honestly, “And I’m not sure which way I’d prefer it.”

James smirks.

Sam comes into the den, pausing while all three of them listen to Miles’s heavy footsteps going up the stairs before he draws the sliding door shut behind him and crosses his arms. “So what did Nat say about Stark sniffing around us and Miles?”

“That he’s probably just angry because everyone’s talking about _our_ kid instead of about Tony’s,” Steve says with a sigh, leaning back in his desk chair. Sam arches an eyebrow, and Steve frowns. “Stark’s a big child, but I don’t buy it. I don’t doubt that he’s been tracking all of us because he thinks he’s entitled to it; he's arrogant but he’s not _stupid_. He knows this was… sudden.”

“So let him nose around some,” Sam says flippantly, shrugging his shoulders.

“I just don’t want him forming an opinion,” Steve mutters angrily, glaring at his desk as though the half-finished model contained a Stark-planted listening device. When Sam drops his arms and crosses the room, Steve obligingly turns his chair to face him. “Miles was doing his thing long before _any_ of us got involved,” Steve says softly, Sam putting a knee between his thighs and leaning down towards him, “Even SHIELD left him alone. But Tony doesn’t even know _how_ to leave things alone.”

“Let him get too close,” Sam says carelessly, getting a hand in Steve’s plush hair, “See how ‘entitled’ he feels when I drop his ass off the side of that narcissistic, _butt-ugly_ tower.”

“I love you,” Steve purrs wonderingly, mouth parting to take Sam’s kiss with open lips.

“I made the same offer,” James notes with a bemused snort, going back to Popular Science.

The kissing continues for a long time, Steve reaching down with one hand to grip and knead the curve of Sam’s ass through his jeans. His other hand comes up to cup the back of Sam’s neck to keep him close. Sam starts pawing at Steve’s waist for the front of his belt, shifting on his propped knee for a better angle to start undoing it.

 “It’s like I’m invisible,” James finally says in exasperation, tossing his magazine aside and getting up.

“Roommate code,” says Sam gleefully, and he laughs and drops to his knees as James snaps the sliding den door shut.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many thanks to my wife Deadsy for all her patience and coaching. You are the steadfast Sam to my ever-conflicted Steve. 
> 
> And thanks to you guys for your continued support, comments, kudos, etc, you are all lovely even if I'm often too busy to reply individually! So lovely, in fact, I thought I'd strike a deal with you. Keep commenting, keep recommending to your friends, keep chatting about it on Tumblr, and I'll start posting two chapters every week, one on Monday and one on Friday. How does that sound?
> 
> I can be found at http://pastelfalcon.tumblr.com/


	4. Chapter 4

Miles is only halfway through screaming a single syllable – “DAD!” – before all three men in the house are up out of bed and moving to get to him. The basement door slams open downstairs as Steve gets to Miles’s bedroom first, finding the fourteen year old thrashing against his blankets in a fit of terror.

Sam grabs Steve’s upper arm to stop him before he can get to the bed to shake him awake, and Miles shouts again, wordless and angry now. Muscle memory keeps Steve from flinging Sam off, but just barely.

“Miles,” Sam says calmly, his voice raised to be heard clearly without yelling, “Miles, little man, you’re okay. Wake up, you’re okay.” He keeps a firm grip on Steve to keep them both in the doorway and block James from view as he comes into the hall no doubt toting a weapon or ten. “Miles,” he says again.

Miles wakes, gasping and disoriented, tearing at his blanket for another moment before he struggles free of the last lingering cobwebs in his head. He sits up immediately, rubbing the butt of his palm into his eyes and struggling to catch his breath. “Sam?” he says finally.

Sam releases Steve and steps into the room, feigning casual ease when really he’s walking on egg shells. “Yeah, it’s me,” Sam murmurs, stepping into Miles’s line of sight. “Steve, why don’t you and James get Miles some water,” he adds gently.

Steve’s still-frantic gaze bounces between them, but James puts a hand on his shoulder above where Sam had grabbed him, and he nods, jaw stiff as he turns and heads down the stairs.

“Mom was falling,” Miles mumbles thickly, face still mostly hidden by his hand. His voice is rough, growing raspy with the threat of oncoming tears and the still-burning rage. “I couldn’t catch her but Dad could. I wanted him to try but he _wouldn’t_. He wouldn’t even _try_.” 

Sam eases into a crouch at his bedside. “Just breathe,” he says softly. He says nothing else, because there are no apologies to be made for Miles’s father, be it for his distorted misdeeds during a nightmare or for his real ones. Miles keeps panting, sharp and frustrated, with his fingers curling into his forehead until he calms himself down. “You okay?” he asks quietly, hand hovering near Miles’s knee without touching.

Miles nods curtly and drops his hand. Sam doesn’t miss the fact that he didn’t cry a single tear.

\- - -

The night that Kate and Ganke come over, Sam makes barbeque chicken and an assortment of sides, threatening James with a metal spatula every time he tries to pick at the food cooking on the stove. He makes Miles a plate of made-from-scratch cookies and a glass of milk to tide him over, and they chat while Miles does his homework at the bar. He even rolls his eyes and grins at them when Steve comes in for some lip-smacky kisses with Sam at the sink.

Sam thinks he’s adjusting pretty well for only having been there two weeks. He’s been sleeping better, only waking up twice in the past few days shouting for one of his parents, and yesterday he fell asleep on the couch watching a movie with them, drooling all over Sam’s knee.

He’s in the process of building a lego Death Star in the den with Steve, and Sam pretends not to notice whenever Miles intentionally leaves a lego right outside the basement door. James had accidentally punched a hole straight through the wall the first time he’d stepped on one, but they’d fixed it before Miles got home. Sam wasn’t even mad, he was too busy laughing.

Steve’s been spending a lot of time hovering, zigzagging between strictly enforcing rules (pre-dinner washing up, getting his homework done, bedtime), desperate attempts to befriend Miles by picking him up from school even when he doesn’t have to and surprising him with pitstops (an old timey icecream parlor, Gamestop, the comic book store) so he can inadvertently embarrass him in public, and slogging through painfully awkward conversations about everything from women to sports to what the kids are into these days. Sam would intervene directly more often, but Miles seems to accept the burden of his overbearing caregiver with both bemused eyerolls and mildly irritated ones. (And Miles’s long-suffering groan when Steve had asked him who this Yeezus guy was had made Sam laugh so hard he’d cried.)

He’s a good, strong kid. Sam wants him to maybe see somebody to start talking out his issues, but it’s too early to suggest counseling to a teenager that resents being asked what he wants for dinner. They’ll get there.

Ganke shows up for dinner first, armed with a backpack full of legos and handful of PS4 games since Sam had assured him they had one in the den, and immediately introduces himself to Sam as “Miles’s main man. Except not like, in the gay way. Not that there’s anything wrong with that!” Kate shows up a little later, dressed in a sundress and combat boots, and the way she looks around the house it’s obvious she’s taking everything in, judging it accordingly for its potential to be a worthy home for her boyfriend. She’s squinting at them both thoughtfully when she shakes their hands in turn, but Steve doesn’t seem to notice.

The kids pile upstairs into Miles’s room not five seconds after introductions, and true to their age, they immediately turn music on way too loud and start thumping around like a band of elephants.

“Miles seems okay having them over,” Steve says breathlessly when he comes back to the kitchen, looking hopeful and apprehensive both, “Right? He looked happy?”

“He’s fine, sunshine,” Sam dismisses, getting a handful of Steve’s jeans-clad ass and hauling him in for a kiss that tastes like toothpaste and worried parent. “You gotta relax.”

Steve smiles guiltily, dropping his forehead against Sam’s. “Nobody told me pleasing a teenager was going to be more difficult than taking down HYDRA.”

“Everything in life is difficult with you,” Sam teases, drawing Steve into a kind of half-dance to the heavy bass upstairs. He feeds Steve a baby carrot from the top of his pot of mixed vegetables. “You worry too much and try too hard, man.”

Steve quirks a frown at him, amused. “I do not.”

Sam raises his eyebrows and tilts his head. “Aw, I guess I’m not talking to the Captain America who – after two years of avoiding it like the plague – started reading the reboot comic about himself so he could talk to Miles about how the writer’s a hack. Must be some other big blonde guy in hipster glasses.”

“I read them when I was enlisted,” Steve says defensively, “I was curious.”

\- - -

Ganke stares at his own hands with narrowed eyes as Miles presumably puts his tongue in Kate’s mouth, his nose scrunched up as he resists the strong urge to chuck every available projectile in their direction because their new affection for massive amounts of PDA is both gross and obnoxious. But bro code dictates that he keep his head down, keep fitting legos together, and pretend that he has _no idea_ what Miles and Kate are doing sitting on the edge of the bed and making all kinds of sloppy wet noises. _Ugh_.

\- - -

Sam raises an eyebrow at Miles when the kids come down to dinner and Kate’s previously immaculate hair is a frizzy mess around her flushed face, but Miles pretends not to notice Sam noticing and sits down at the table right next to her. Ganke sits down across from them, leaving Steve and Sam to sit at either end of the table.

They eat mostly in silence for the first ten minutes besides Sam asking each of them about school and Steve asking where their parents work. Kate and Miles nudge each other’s feet under the table until Ganke coughs and disguises a “gettaroom” in the middle of his fit, and Steve watches Miles like he’s afraid the kid’s going to declare how unhappy he is and march out the front door. Kate’s eyes narrow at Steve when she notices.

“Steve,” Sam says, agitated when he sees how uncomfortably Miles fidgets under the weight of Steve’s stare and the heat of Kate’s return fire, “Eat your damn veggies and quit eyeing the lovebirds. You were fourteen once, man. Not their fault it’s been a decade and a half since then.”

Kate bites her lip and laughs, after which Steve’s shoulders relax and he smiles guiltily while picking at his greens. “Miles says you’re just as bad,” she snickers, sipping her glass of milk.

Steve’s ears turn as pink as Kate’s face before dinner. “Oh, yeah, huh.”

“Our shmoopy shtick is becoming legendary, Steve,” Sam says, laughing, pushing away his emptied plate. He grins at Miles. “Soon the whole school’s gonna know.”

“It’s so cool that you guys are gay,” Ganke says exuberantly as he finishes piling his apparently unwanted vegetables into a teetering tower caked with butter.

Sam raises both eyebrows. “Is it now.”

“Yeah, gay parents are the coolest,” Ganke confirms seriously, knocking his tower over with his fork rather than let it topple on its own. “Our friend Judge has two moms and one of them coaches volleyball at school and the other one works for the government.”

Miles covers his face with his hand and groans miserably, like maybe this is a topic he’s had to endure before.

“That’s great,” Steve says helplessly, visibly confused.

“I’m bi,” Ganke chirps conversationally, getting a forkful and cramming his mouth full of vegetables after all, “But I don’t think I want to have kids until the economy recovers.”

“That’s a perfectly legitimate concern, son,” Steve says blankly. He looks at Sam and Kate for help.

Sam starts laughing first, shaking his head as he leans back in his chair before sipping his drink, Kate following after him with giggles she barely stifles with a knuckle pressed to her mouth.  

Miles, however, jerks in his seat, eyes wide as he stares at Ganke over the top of his hand, and says, “Wait, what?”

Ganke’s either ignoring Miles or completely oblivious to anyone that isn’t Sam or Steve, because he continues the conversation like he didn’t hear him. Miles goes quiet and doesn’t try to engage anyone else for the rest of dinner.

\- - -

Kate leaves a little while after Ganke’s parents come pick him up, her father’s limo idling beside the sidewalk as Miles awkwardly shuffles outside with her to say goodbye. “I thought you knew,” she says after a moment of silence, but Miles only shrugs and looks down.

Kate heads down the walk, arms coming up to fold across her chest, when Miles says her name like a hiccup and jogs down after her. He glances hesitatingly at the black windows of the limo, but Kate just laughs and draws his face down for a quick kiss.

“Steve says I can come back any time I like,” she says, fingers still on his jaw.

Miles’s mouth curls at the corner. “Your dad’s probably watching,” he points out beneath his breath.

“The car’s empty,” Kate says, and slides her hand to the back of his neck to hold him in place, “And it’s dark anyway.”

\- - -

Miles is snoring with his phone on top of his face and an arm hanging off the side of his bed by eleven.

Sam is only mildly annoyed that Steve checked.

“Oh, fuck, _Sam_ ,” Steve groans, rubbing his flushed face against the sheets as his gripping, kneading fingers ripple the material. He keeps his lower body bowed, hips raised and working back against Sam’s with practiced ease, knees spaced so wide on the mattress his thighs are trembling. Sam’s got a hand on Steve’s leaking cock, stroking his uncut length with intentional clumsiness so Steve can’t quite get lost in the rhythm of their fuck. “Sam,” he rasps, reaching back with one hand to paw at Sam’s leg, “Please. _Please_.”

“Work for it,” Sam croons, eyes on what’s visible of Steve’s face as he winces in pleasure and need; Sam licks his lips.

“Such an asshole,” Steve breathes out in a laugh, shifting to circle his hips between the quick shove of Sam’s dick against his insides and the slick grip of his fingers on his dick, fucking himself with little puff-sighs of effort. “Didn’t you just tell me earlier I try too hard to be pleasing?”

“It’s all relative,” Sam says with a grin, free hand sliding down Steve’s tense back to get a handful of his hair.

\- - -

Students filter into the classroom in bunches, chatting and laughing as they mingle around their desks, not yet willing to surrender themselves to their seats and the classwork that accompanies them. Miles sits in the back row beside Ganke, the both of them silent as Ganke sketches something in a notebook and Miles fiddles with his phone.

“Go ahead and say it,” Ganke says under his breath, embellishing the initials LE with blue-inked swirls.

Miles puts his phone down and leans into the aisle between their desks. “I can’t believe you didn’t tell me!” he bursts out in a strained hiss, having left the topic alone overnight while he mulled it over.

Ganke shrugs. “You never asked,” he points out.

“Neither did they!”

He shrugs again, detailing the frame he’s erected around the initials. “I knew you’d be okay with it. You’re my best friend.”

Miles blinks, pawing at his jawline self-consciously. “Well yeah, of course.”

The bell rings, ushering in the last of their classmates as well as their harried-looking teacher, students tucking their phones beneath their desks and slinging their textbooks out accordingly.

“So when are you gonna get back into Spidey stuff?” Ganke whispers during bookwork, an elbow on the edge of his desk to balance himself as he leans into Miles’s space.

“Ganke!” Miles hisses loudly, glaring at him and making a rapid throat-cut gesture.

“Just asking,” Ganke mutters, returning to his work.

“Spider-Man got my mom killed,” Miles mumbles back, not for the first time, and slumps down in his chair. He shrugs his shoulders, using the girth of his hoodie to hide the bulk of his frame, like a child huddling in a blanket.

“No, he didn’t,” Ganke insists, flipping his notebook shut and pulling a few pages of a battered newspaper onto his desk from his bag. “This dickcheese cop did it,” he says, jabbing his pen in the eye of the police officer pictured, “And he’s _still_ not in jail or _anything_.”

“Give me that,” Miles growls, wrenching the already abused-by-backpack paper from Ganke’s grasp. The pen tears the page further, shredding the man’s face. He stares at the headline and the first paragraph, his mouth falling into an uncomfortable frown. “There’s people protesting?”

“Yeah. I mean, I guess I should’ve told you, but… It didn’t seem like something to bring up so soon, and you weren’t back at school yet, so,” Ganke explains awkwardly, looking a little ashamed of himself as he pretends to be busy with his books, “It started happening right after the funeral. There was like three hundred people at the one me and Katie went to.”

Miles looks up sharply from the article. “You and Katie went to a protest for my mom?”

“Yeah, of course,” Ganke says, meeting Miles’s bloodshot eyes unflinchingly. “A lot of people were hoping Spider-Man would come, but,” and he shrugs. “There’s another one this weekend,” Ganke adds.

“It’s Spider-Man’s fault,” Miles says softly, but he looks back at the article – OFFICER NOT FACING CHARGES FOR SHOOTING – and doesn’t look away from the torn picture for a long time.

\- - -

Sam stretches his wings out, coasting along the heat radiating in swirls off the cement roof, goggles-clad eyes scanning the tall glass windows of the building to his right in search of shadows of movement. “There’s another protest for Rio Morales Saturday,” he says into his communicator, gliding into a wide circle to keep his speed.

“Are you going to take him?” Steve’s voice crackles in his ear, punctuated by grunts of effort.

“No way, man,” Sam says immediately, eyes catching sight of something in the windows and circling back around, the sun hot and bright against his back, “They’ll figure out who he is and try to make a spectacle. It’s too soon to expose him to something like that.”

“Good call,” Steve agrees, his voice followed by several loud, rapid pops. “Hold on, Falcon, I’m getting a little bit of a work-out here.”

“Sure, sure, keep all the heat for yourself,” Sam laughs, swooping down to the windows.

“Actually, I wouldn’t mind spreading it around some.”

“Music to my ears, Cap,” chuckles Sam, “Music to my ears!”

He turns sharply, plucking a gun free from his straps and taking out the glass with a couple of well-placed shots. He draws the wings in as he tumbles through the shattered window, falling into a roll past the glass and ending in a crouch so he can fire on the yellow-suited gaggle of men occupying his side of the room. He aims for knees and weapon-holding hands.

Dudes fall like dominos, cartoon exclamations of pain and all.

“Stark’s gonna have to pay for that window,” Captain America admonishes teasingly, dinging one of the assailants Sam missed with his shield.

“I’d tell him to take it out of my next check but I’m not on his payroll,” Sam snickers, standing slowly and leaning up against the wall to mop some of the sweat from his brow. “Damn, man, we gotta get my ass outta the office more often. I’m winded.”

“You should tell him you’re going,” Steve says, reaching up to grip the back of Sam’s neck with gloved fingers. “It might mean a lot to him.”

“Yeah,” Sam agrees, bobbing his head briefly as he drops his hands to his knees to catch his breath, “Or it might piss him off and make him think that’s why we took him in.”

Steve frowns, the mask giving it the full _Captain America is Disappointed, Son_ effect. “I don’t think keeping it from him is wise, Falcon.”

“Are you boys having fun?” Natasha croons from the entryway, eyes sweeping quickly over the bodies. She saunters in and kicks one of them in the head before plucking a gun from their limp fingers. “I’d say I’m surprised at how well you clean house together but I’ve seen yours and it’s immaculate.”

“Yeah, you could eat off the floor if you were so inclined,” Sam smirks.

Natasha arches an eyebrow, perching herself on the edge of a desk. “If that was a come-on, it’s not the oddest I’ve ever heard.”

“Let’s not get on that topic again,” Steve says quickly, his stern tone only earning him laughter from his comrades. “Tell Iron Man to send in the clean-up crew, Falcon and I are heading out.”

“That’s right,” Nat says as she grips the edge of the desk and leans forward with a wide Cheshire smile, “You two have the joys of parenthood to get home to.”

“Don’t let Tony hear you say that,” Steve mutters, scowling, “He’s already got it in his head—”

“That you’re totally taking my baby-making spotlight?” Tony questions, his voice coming in crisp and clear on their ear pieces, “Oh, I’m on to you, Captain. I’m on to you _and_ the winged wifey.”

Steve reaches out and takes Sam’s communicator before he can reply.

\- - -

James is standing by the fridge eating a bowl of cereal when Miles gets home from school and goes into the kitchen to help himself to a popsicle. He watches Miles with expressionless eyes, some kind of black makeup spread across his eyelids and the top of his cheekbones, his hair loose and tangled around his face. He’d look like a deranged homeless goth except he’s wearing Betty Boop pajama pants.

“Your girlfriend is a real doll,” James says, grinning youthfully even though his voice rasps like an elderly smoker’s. “They didn’t make ‘em like that when I was growing up.”

“You didn’t even meet her,” Miles points out, both cross and confused, “You were in the basement the _whole time_ she was here.”

“Not the whole time,” says James, spooning another crunchy bite into his mouth, the bowl held close to his face.

“You are _so weird_ ,” Miles says, disturbed, and leaves the kitchen to find Sam and Steve.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As promised, here's your Friday bonus chapter! See you Monday with the next one! 
> 
> (If you notice a chapter disappearing over the weekend, it's because I'm merging the prologue and first chapter.)


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am going to apologize ahead of time because I haven’t read anything with Sharon Carter in it so I only had a few minutes from CATWS to cobble together characterization for her. I’m sorry if it doesn’t jam with her comics persona. 
> 
> Sorry for the day-late posting on this one. It’s roughly 600 words longer than the average chapter length so hopefully that makes up for it.
> 
> As ever, comments and kudos are my lifeblood. Keep ‘em coming to get your bonus Friday update!

“This is my favorite place,” says Kate with a wide smile, her legs raised up for a brief swing before folding back down to cross at her ankles. They’re sitting on the corner of the flat gymnasium roof, backpacks sprawled on the textured concrete behind them. The sky is bright and blinding blue above them, clouds chased along by a hot breeze.

Miles leans back on his hands, his expression pensive beneath the drape of his sleeveless hoodie’s hood. The same hundreds of students who’ve been openly staring at him for days can’t see him now even though he can see them. “I like it too,” he agrees.

“We should come up here all the time,” muses Kate, “Everything looks small, like doll house pieces.” She pauses when she catches Miles looking over at her. “What?”

“James said you were a doll,” Miles says, making a face at the memory. “Yesterday, after school, he said he was watching us.”

Kate grimaces vibrantly. “Because _that’s_ not creepy.”

Miles laughs and kicks his foot, his hood slipping back enough to reveal his grin. “Right?”

“Ganke told me you said he does that a lot. Watch, I mean.”

Miles shrugs thoughtfully and tips his head back. “Yeah, I mean, he’s okay when Sam and Steve are around. He’s mostly in the basement.”

“Maybe he’s lonely,” Kate murmurs.

Miles shrugs again, and they both go quiet for a long time, watching the clouds drifting above them, stretched-out cottonballs teased into vague shapes by the persistent breeze.

“I really missed you, those couple of weeks,” Kate says. The wind teases her hair and she pulls a loose strand of her pink bangs back behind her ear. “After the funeral, I thought I’d never see you again.”

“Me too,” Miles says, voice tight. His expression contorts suddenly and he immediately grits his teeth, willing away the wince of pained grief with a grimace of anger instead. He shrugs deeper into his hoodie.

Kate watches from the corner of her eye and looks away, biting first her lip and then her painted thumbnail. “I don’t want to push you,” she says, “But you need to start mourning.”

Miles gets up so abruptly he almost knocks into her, grabbing blindly for his backpack and only managing to catch the strap as he moves by way of the tiny hairs on his fingertips from the spider incident. He fumbles with it a little for show.

“Miles,” Kate says, scrambling to her feet. Miles stops short but doesn’t turn, slinging on his backpack and hunching his shoulders in self-defense. “I know Ganke told you about the rallies. Maybe you should come?” She folds her arms over her chest, staring at his back apprehensively. “Ganke says Spider-Man might show up this weekend.”

Miles turns his head sharply. “Fuck Spider-Man,” he snarls.

Kate doesn’t flinch. “No,” she says gently. “Your mom died protecting him. Because she knew he was a hero.”

“ _He_ wasn’t the hero,” Miles says tonelessly, hurrying down the ladder on the side of the building.

\- - -

Sharon grabs Steve’s gloved hand at the last moment, a grunt of pain passing her clenched teeth as his full weight yanks her arm and catches, the bones in her fingers creaking at the strength with which Captain America clutches her back. Steve’s eyes are wide in apology and concern as he scrambles to climb back into the helicopter and it swerves, fire-crackled smoke bursting up around them in a flurry of embers.

“Let go!” Steve yells above the roar of explosions.

“And tell everyone I let Captain America die in _Texas_?” Sharon shouts back, face so contorted with effort she can’t add a sassy expression to match.

The helicopter veers again, this time tilting hard enough to give Steve the leeway to tumble back in. Sharon lets him go and grabs the bench with her good arm to keep from sliding out into the furnace below.

“Are you okay?” he asks immediately when he’s up and crouched in front of her.

Sharon winces and leans back against the wall, dirty face flushed beneath the spill of her sweaty hair. “What’s a couple of dislocations between friends?” she asks breathlessly.

“That’s what I always say,” Hawkeye says from the cockpit. Natasha swats him and gestures at the controls expectantly.

“You know I still feel badly we never got around to that cup of coffee,” Steve says, sitting down beside her in a painfully obvious attempt to keep her shielded from the heat. He knows Sharon will let him, because she’s going to be taken off the field for weeks over her injuries as it is.

“I don’t,” Sharon says loudly with a grin. She puts her head on his shoulder, mindful of where the fire melted the fabric. “Things are always blowing up around you.”

“Hey Cap?” Nat says as she leans back into their space, headset still on, “I know you like keeping these things in a strict 7-to-5 timeframe, but it looks like the fire is spreading. We can’t pack up until it’s contained.” Steve makes a face because Sam gets particularly fussy now if he’s not home in time for dinner. “You should call him,” Natasha says because she reads expressions like thoughts.

“Yeah,” Steve says, rubbing at his closed eye to get rid of some of the ember grit, “Fuck, alright.”

He settles for a text because cell reception tends to be touch-and-go when there’s literal explosions going on around you. Also because Sam has put the fear of God in him when it comes to Friday pasta nights.

_I’m giving your food to Miles_ , Sam texts back without punctuation, meaning Steve’s probably going to come home to a pair of furrowed eyebrows and a ‘dude just _try_ to say you’re sorry, I _dare_ you’ frown.

“Trouble with the mister?” Sharon guesses with a smile. 

Steve rolls his lower lip into his mouth and glances down beneath his lowered lashes, laughing soundlessly. “You could say that,” he says. They land and he immediately moves so he can help her scoot out.

“Medic’s that way,” Nat says, nodding towards an approaching vehicle.

“Take 13 over there and we’ll buzz you when we’ve got any idea how to put this shit out,” Clint says with a nod of his own, peering at the blaze from above his shades.

Steve looks down at Sharon and she rolls her eyes. “Go ahead.” She restrains a noise when Steve sweeps her up and starts carrying her across the pavement. “So, trouble?” she prompts, determined to square their embarrassment.

Steve rolls his eyes in exasperation at her cajoling but elaborates anyway. “Sam just doesn’t want me wearing myself down. We have an agreement.”

Sharon raises her eyebrows. “Oh yeah?”

“If I can keep the costume stuff inside normal work hours, I can keep doing it,” he says, stopping when he gets to the ambulance – SHIELD-branded – to set her down for inspection. “It’s even more important now. I have more responsibilities outside of this than I did back in DC. The Avengers can’t have my whole life unless it’s because I need to lay it down.”

Sharon allows them to look her over, cringing mildly at the poking and prodding but enduring it with only the occasional correction. “That’s good,” she says finally, smiling, “I’m glad to hear that, even if you make it sound a little morose.”

Steve laughs and rubs the back of his neck. “Y’know Sam’s a lot more poetic about it. Something about learning to disengage even though you’re conditioned not to. About how otherwise you’ll lose sight of what motivates you in the first place.”

Sharon grins. “Well give me a call when he gets it down to a science, I could use a little definitive disengaging.”

Steve laughs again. “Uh yeah, me too,” he admits, because while he goes through the motions, there’s no fight Steve Rogers can back down from, even if backing down just means leaving it alone until tomorrow.

“Alright, Cap,” Hawkeye says in his ear, “We’re gonna try dumping water on it.”

Sharon still has her communicator on so she hears it too, and they exchange a look. “Never woulda thought of that,” Steve says back with a wry grin, and he can feel Clint’s amusement in his subsequent snort.

\- - -

Miles waits until he hears Sam go into his office down the hall from their bedrooms before he pads down the stairs in his socks. He leaves his computer and his phone behind for once, ignored text messages buzzing in his wake, laptop open to google with the search bar partially filled – “rio morales protes” – and the cursor blinking in anticipation of the final untyped letter.

He perches on the edge of the couch cushions and stares at the television. The remote is sitting on the coffee table, the Wilsons’ house among the few he’s ever been in where it’s always sitting where it’s supposed to be. Except when Steve intentionally misplaces it to troll Sam.

Beyond skimming the newspaper article yesterday, Miles hasn’t read or watched a shred of news since his father left a few hours after his mother’s funeral. He’s no longer pulling on spidey spandex and following police cars around so keeping a finger on the city’s pulse has been far from a necessity anyway.

He folds his hands together and raises them to his face, index fingers pressing against his mouth as he considers the unlit screen before him. Miles stares at himself in the blackness, hunched forward and still hiding in his hoodie.

He could turn on the news. He could wait for when they’d inevitably start talking about his mom, about what was going on with the officer who’d murdered her, and, apparently, about the massive protests that had been cropping up all across the city in the weeks he’d been at the group home. He could watch it and see what they were saying about the rallies and if maybe he _should_ …

Maybe he _should go_.

Miles stares at himself reflected in muted colors on the screen, and hates everything he can and can’t see.

\- - -

Sam finishes up whatever it was he was doing in his office and comes down to make dinner around the time Miles has retreated to the kitchen in search of a box of fruit gushers. The pantry is overloaded with food of all kinds but especially snack food. “Yeah,” Sam says in agreement with what Miles hadn’t had a chance to verbalize, “Little Debbie hit some hard times and moved her whole damn family in.” Miles rolls his eyes and goes to sit at the bar, bringing with him a box of fruit rollups instead.

“Steve’s got a work thing,” Sam says, washing his hands and getting his counterspace prepped for cooking, “So it’s just you, me, and James for pasta night.”

Miles eats the gummy sheet whole, tipping his face up to rip bites free with his teeth. “Is Iron Man too busy to watch his own house?” he asks dubiously.

“You better cut the crap with all that Iron Man talk,” Sam says, laughing mostly to himself as he starts mixing together flour and eggs, “There’s a whole helluva lot more going on in that tower than Avengers Christmas parties.”

“Does Steve know Iron Man?” Miles presses, ignoring Sam’s point.

Sam laughs again but this time it’s loud and accompanied by a shake of his head. He’s done whisking in milk and oil so he gathers up the dough that's formed and starts working it out with his bare hands. “Maybe you outta ask him when he gets home,” Sam suggests.

Miles frowns in an excellent imitation of put-out and pouting Ganke, kicking his foot idly as he watches Sam work. He finishes massaging the dough and tucks it up under a sheet of plastic, washing the flour from his hands and coming over the bar to sit and wait for it to rise.

“He’s got all kinds of stories,” Sam promises, picking up a fruit rollup for himself and unwrapping it to peel the shapes out and eat them.

Miles chews the last of his own rollup with his mouth open, folding his arms on the bar and leaning forward to put his chin on them. “Have you heard anything about the guy who shot my mom?” he asks impulsively, bland-toned.

Sam goes still for a long moment and puts his snack down. “He’s suspended with pay,” he says carefully. “The cops are doing an internal investigation, he hasn’t been charged with anything yet.”

Miles is chewing on his thumbnail. “It was on the security cameras,” he mumbles, looking at nothing.

"Yeah," agrees Sam.

Miles turns his face away and stares at the swelling dough on the counter.

“I know you feel responsible to your mom and you want to make sure justice is getting done,” Sam says, firm and gentle at once. “And, look, if you think you’re ready for it, I’ve got all the information you want to know. But it might be too early to be tugging on that bandaid, Miles. Sometimes you’ve got to give yourself time to heal up before you start ripping things open.”

Miles swallows tightly. “I’m afraid to watch the news,” he mumbles thickly.

“Then wait until you’re good for it,” Sam suggests softly, bumping Miles’s arm with his knuckles. “No shame in catching your breath before you hit the diving board, little man. Keeps you from drowning.”

“There’s protests, for my mom,” says Miles.

Sam swallows and draws his hand up to his face, rubbing a palm over his mouth as he scrambles to gather wool. “Yeah, a whole buncha them,” he confirms, Steve’s disapproving eyes watching him from the back of his mind. He licks his lips. “I’ve been to a couple,” he says cautiously.

Miles looks up at him sharply, eyebrows gathered in a tight furrow that makes him look so much older than his fourteen years.

“It’s not right, what happened to your mom,” Sam says, meeting Miles’s gaze with his own as he shakes his head slowly, “It’s the farthest thing from right. She was doing the right thing and that piece of shit took her life for it.”

The silence that follows is so long the expanding dough behind Sam begins creeping free of its tucked plastic. There’s birds being noisy in the backyard, no doubt lured in by one of the dozens of tiny wooden houses Steve has crafted over the years and the endless supply of seed James stocks them with on Sunday afternoons.

“Are you going to the rally tomorrow?” Miles asks at long last.

Sam nods slowly. “Yeah.”

Miles nods back like that settles something and he gets up from his stool to throw away their discarded fruit rollup wrappers and the now-empty box that had held them. “Ganke says Spider-Man’s going to be there,” Miles says conversationally, not looking at Sam.

Sam’s face contorts briefly before he can look away, brown eyes overbright and stinging. “I’ll take a picture if I see him,” he says, voice reedy. He laughs thick and wet to cover it up and moves over to the counter to roll the dough flat and cut it into strips for boiling.

\- - -

Steve comes home so late the lights along the front walk are on. He finds Sam and Miles in the den instead of the living room, playing some incarnation of Halo even though Miles appears so tired his eyelids are drooping and his trashtalk has petered out to a half-hearted yawn of “you suck.”

Steve kisses Sam’s neck from behind the den couch and Miles groans loudly in protest, but Sam’s subsequent laughter shows Steve Miles’s outrage isn’t genuine. He slides to his knees and folds his arms up on the couch to watch them play.

Miles eventually yawns so wide his eyes tear up, so Sam pauses the game.

“Do you know Iron Man?” Miles asks sleepily. Sam snorts.

Steve blinks behind his false glasses in surprise at the question. “Uh, what was that, buddy?”

Miles flops his tired limbs around so he can turn and stare at Steve in earnest from over the back of the couch. “Iron Man’s your boss, right?”

“Tony is _not my boss_ ,” Steve immediately blurts, so indignant and defensive his face flushes.

Miles arches an eyebrow and eyes him dubiously. “You work for him.”

Steve’s angry flush turns pink all the way up to his ears, finger snagging his collar to fuss with his shirt’s neckline bashfully. “Uh. I work more for Pepper Potts than Tony Stark, actually,” he clarifies.

Sam has his knuckles crammed in his mouth, dying. Steve shoots him a glare.

“Iron Man’s my favorite Avenger and Sam says you’ve got stories,” Miles prompts, going back to looking expectant. “He must be _so cool_.”

“Maybe later,” Steve says dryly, and Sam’s laugher bursts free in a loud, joyful rush.

\- - -

Sam keeps laughing at Steve’s face when they go to bed, all the way up until Steve has him pinned to the mattress with fire in his eyes and his cock hard against Sam’s inner thigh.

Sam ends up swearing _his_ favorite Avenger is Captain America.

He cooks them all a big breakfast in the morning. 

\- - -

Sam is no stranger to protests of both the organized and spontaneous sort. Giving a shit about veterans comes with a whole basket of things to get angry about, and objecting to those systemic and social failings is part of the pie. And being a black man with open eyes in Washington is like having a front row seat to everything your grandmother warned you about growing up. He’s been to pre-planned protests with a sign in hand, he’s become part of angry crowds and raised his voice to chant along, he’s stood silently in court rooms and sat down on sidewalks. He’s helped organize them, he’s helped hand out bottles of water, he’s helped educate and enable.

The turnout for Justice for Rio Morales is as big as it is energized, handmade t-shirts and wooden signs littering the gathering of people, all indications of being in this for the long-haul. Sam sticks to the edge of the park, his responsibility to his job and his family coming before getting too deep and getting arrested for disorderly. He chats politics with some college students.

A young Hispanic woman gets up on a metal park bench about half an hour after he arrives, a megaphone clutched in her small fist and a blown-up printout of Rio Morales’s smiling face held high in her other hand.

“We’re here today because this woman is _dead_ and her _murderer_ is at home _getting paid_ before _her_ _blood is even done drying_ on his hands. We’re here today because New York City’s Finest are its finest racists, its finest bullies, its finest murderers and rapists. We’re here today because a _loving mother_ is _rotting in a box_ and our _tax dollars_ are being used to make her murderer’s life _comfy_ while he waits for his buddies to declare him innocent while his _hands still drip_. We’re here today because if we don’t say it, nobody else will: _this man is a murderer, and we want **justice**_.”

The crowd surges and starts shouting, fists and signs raised, a chant building from within the din and gaining strength with every passing second. Sam raises his own clenched fist, echoing the roar:

“ _Justice_. _Justice_. _Justice_.”

No one sees him enter the crowd, but they see him step up out of it: Spider-Man, sleek black and red suit glistening like wet stone in the bright burn of late evening sunlight, joining the woman with the megaphone on the bench. The chanting peters out, followed by a rumble of question, as the woman says something to him and then offers him the megaphone.

He rolls up his mask and Sam sucks in a breath, but he lets the material rest just beneath his nose.

“Told you Spidey was black,” says one of the college students behind him.

“Uh,” Spider-Man says, and the syllable stretches out on a feedback whine. He stops and tries again. “Thank you for being here for… for Rio Morales.” The crowd roars and he waits for it to settle. “When I went into that bank to stop that robber, I… I wanted to be a hero. I wanted to protect people. And I did that, but when Whitman turned his gun on me, M--… Morales was the hero.”

Spider-Man pauses again, his slim shoulders slumping as he looks out across the crowd. For a moment, his masked gaze lingers on Sam, and Sam can’t resist the urge to nod tightly in encouragement.

“She told him to calm down,” Spider-Man recalls, his voice rough and muffled even in the megaphone, “That I… was only there to help. But he wouldn’t listen to her. And when he shot her…”

The swarm is silent now in a way Sam’s never heard during a protest, not even the white kids smoking weed under the trees daring to talk. He breathes in, slow and easy, and mentally wills Miles to do the same.

“She was brave. She said she wasn’t scared, and… And that I shouldn’t be either. Not ever. Because you can’t be scared when you’re doing the right thing. It's the people who are wrong who should be scared.”

The crowd erupts in an explosive mixture of anger and hope, even the young and old sitting on the grass rising to their feet to chant. Spider-Man hands the megaphone back to the protester, raising a hand and web-slinging himself above the surge of people and out of the park.

Sam sees Ganke and Kate, wading their way through the crowd towards the bench, stop to watch him go.

\- - -

It’s the last breath of sunset, orange light pushing against the curtains in the living room, when Miles sits down and watches the news for the first time in two months. They’re replaying cellphone footage of the protest and the march that followed, mostly focusing on Spider-Man’s sudden appearance and exit.

Sam comes in and sits down on the couch beside him.

“Viewers may recall the source of the unrest, local resident Rio Morales, who was shot and killed by a police officer following a bank robbery stopped by Spider-Man,” the reporter’s voiceover explains, showing clips of cop cars parked outside of the bank, “Sources say Morales was trying to prevent the officer from arresting the masked vigilante, an altercation that lead to her being shot six times in the chest and abdomen.”

The footage changes to a blurry zoom-in of paramedics moving a lumpy black bag on a gurney out of the bank, and Miles goes rigid at Sam’s side. “Mom,” he blurts out, a noise strangling high in his throat.

“Miles,” Sam breathes.

“That’s my mom,” Miles chokes out, turning sharply into Sam’s shoulder and grabbing a handful of his shirt. He’s sobbing by the time Sam can get his arms around him, loud and frantic, clutching blindly as Sam draws them into a slow rocking motion. “Why would they show that on tv _Sam that’s my mom_.”

“Shhh, little man, shhh,” Sam soothes, eyes bloodshot as he presses his face into the top of Miles’s head.

Steve pads in silently and turns off the television.

\- - -

They gather every blanket and pillow from upstairs and spread them out in the den, and Miles only rolls his eyes a little when Steve gets a couple of dining room chairs and makes their lumpy pallet into a fort. They crawl up inside it with snacks from the kitchen and Miles falls asleep between them when Steve is only halfway through telling him a story about Tony Stark peeing in his Iron Man suit at a party and it wasn’t even the first time.


	6. Chapter 6

They creep out of the blanket fort just before sunrise, leaving Miles to snore softly and cuddle deeper into the nest of pillows. Sam starts coffee, working out the stiffness in his back by flexing his shoulders and bending backwards a few times, groaning silently. When Steve putters over to massage it out, he chuckles and pushes back into his lover’s hands, gripping the edge of the counter to keep himself steady.

“Do you think we should keep him out of school today?” Steve asks, working quickly to loosen bunched muscles.

Sam cringes and grunts. “Damn, I must be gettin’ old.” Exhaling shortly and tipping his face back up, he says, “Only if he asks. He might need some space, Steve. Some time away from the house. It can’t have been easy getting up and talking in front of everybody like that, then crying in front of us at the house.”

“I just don’t want him stranded at school without us,” Steve mumbles worriedly, lowering his hands to rest on Sam’s hips.

“Don’t you start infantilizing that kid,” Sam warns, standing up to lean his head back against the warm brick wall of Steve’s shoulder. “The last thing he needs is overbearing parents. He’s been rocking spandex for a year now, all his own.”

“He just lost his family,” protests Steve.

“All the more reason to give him some room,” Sam reminds him gently, turning around within the bracket of Steve’s arms. “We’re here if he needs us. We can come get him from school if he needs us to. But he won’t ask if we don’t give him the chance.”

Steve’s smile is only half-bitter. “You ever gonna get tired of being so right?”

“Only when you stop being tired of being on my left,” Sam croons before he presses their mouths together, ignoring the staleness of their breath as he opens Steve’s lips and licks a moan out of him. “You want some breakfast nookie before the house wakes up?” he asks with a shit-eating grin.

Steve groans hot and muffled against Sam’s mouth, gripping his hips hard enough to bruise as he hauls him closer.

\- - -

“I so did not want to see that,” Miles whispers in reverent disgust as he turns on his heel and marches right the fuck away from the kitchen. “I’m never gonna eat anything made with Pam ever again, ugh.”

\- - -

The basement beneath the house stretches three stories deep, occupied by slanted metal grating walkways that zigzag back and forth between landings – hallowed out in the walls – all the way down to a fully equipped gym. Each landing houses something different: weapons caches and cases of varying sizes, a computer station with a screen four feet tall, lighted trophy cases holding old costumes and mission spoils, a compartmentalized lab, and two separate sleeping quarters (only one even remotely used.) The walls are slate gray and smooth. 

Sound echoes continuously, from the occasional beep from the computer station to the dull thud of James’s fists – metal and flesh – against a punching bag at the bottom.

He’s worked up a sweat – no simple feat with his serum-tampered physique – and busted two bags already, their sagging remains tossed into the corner for later disposal. He bounces on his feet around the bag as it swings, falling into practiced flurries and uppercuts. When he breaks the third bag, he bares his teeth and scream-snarls his frustration, kicking its sand-dribbling bulk aside with a bare foot.

“Fuck,” he shouts. He turns sharply on his heel and drops into a crouch with his hands clutching the sweaty mess of his hair. “Shit.”

He’s still cowed like that when the basement door opens, momentarily spilling warmer light on the upper landings before the door closes. He knows it’s Sam; Sam’s footfall is lighter than Steve’s, and he usually walks with an air of calm that neither Steve nor Bucky are ready to tread with.

“You okay down here?” Sam calls from the top landing, leaning over the railing along the edge. “James,” he adds in a singsong voice, teasing and casual like he’s not looking down to see Bucky huddled in on himself, “I brought coffee.”

James starts to unfold himself and, after a moment of consideration, raises a hand to gesture him down.

Sam trots down the walks, comfortable enough with the route that he doesn’t bother with the railings. James’s eyes trail him the entire time, but Sam doesn’t seem to mind the vaguely suspicious cat routine. When he gets down to the gym level he offers a mug of coffee to James’s stooped frame. “Figured you’d be hankering for some, considering you been holed up in here for two days now.”

“Thanks,” James manages, his voice hoarse with abuse. He takes a big gulp and relishes the burn of piping liquid over the burning already constricting his throat.

“You wanna talk about it?” Sam asks, soft and casual, perching himself on the end of a weight-lifting bench.

They’ve had this conversation something like a hundred times in the last few years, but Sam never wavers in his friendly, patient interest and understanding. James can start rambling in Russian to hide some of the red dripping off his recollections but Sam always continues to listen, taking what he needs from James’s tone and offering soft-voiced assurances in turn.

It’s something James can never bring to Steve, because Steve hurts for all of James’s hurts. Sam just lets James air his hurts out without showering him with syrupy-sweet pity and sorrowful eyes. Sam smiles at him kindly, judgeless, even when James sticks to English.

“James,” Sam prompts, but there’s nothing impatient about it.

James doesn’t feel like getting into all of it right now.

“I need to get out more,” he croaks at last, his lips sliding into a smile over the top of the cup, “So I don’t have to listen to the two of you screw in the kitchen and think about how I need to get myself a girl.”

“Get yourself a girl, or fix things up with Natasha?” Sam asks with an arched eyebrow. When James doesn’t rise to the bait, Sam pulls a face, waving a dismissive hand at the complaint. “Nobody told you to bug the kitchen, man.”

“We didn’t want SHIELD or Stark keeping tabs on us at home,” James reminds him, but he’s still grinning as he gets to his feet, careful not to slop his coffee. “Somebody’s got to.”

Sam laughs and claps a hand on James’s shoulder, unbothered by the meeting between metal and flesh beneath his briefly gripping hand. “You keep tellin’ yourself that, man. I musta missed the memo where they said gettin’ busy became a security risk.”

“If it’s not,” James says with raised eyebrows, “Then you’re probably not doing it right.”

\- - -

Miles sips his orange juice and sits rigidly at the bar, his eyes roaming everywhere but the stretch of counter beside the coffee pot or the cupboard where they keep the cooking sprays. Steve’s making scrambled eggs and it’s actually a pretty okay effort, three kinds of shredded cheese and some salt and pepper mixed up in the fluffy yellow-white eggs.

“You can stay out sick today,” Steve notes in a carefully conversational tone, doling out breakfast for just the two of them on small plates.

Miles wrinkles his nose contemplatively, putting down his juice. “Would I be stuck here with James?”

Steve’s mouth quirks in partially affronted amusement. “What’s wrong with James?”

Miles flushes and drops his head a little, forking his eggs in a guilty sort of way. He lifts a shoulder in a quick shrug and starts eating. 

“He takes some getting used to,” Steve agrees lightly, perching himself on a stool across from Miles. “We’ve been friends for a long time. He always used to look out for me.”

“That’s cool,” Miles mumbles, shoving eggs into his mouth. He fiddles with his phone on the bar, but it’s barely past sunrise, too early to start texting his likely snoring friends. He bites his lip suddenly, trying to contain a smile. “He wears eyeliner.”

Steve chokes on his eggs and laughs. “That’s, uh, that’s kind’ve become a courting thing.” Miles looks up and arches an eyebrow in question. “He’s got a thing for a woman I work with,” Steve explains. “He had some on his face for a work thing and she said she liked how it looked.”

“Does he work security too?” Miles asks interestedly, kicking a foot back and forth.

“Sometimes?” Steve says helplessly. He’s terrible at keeping secrets and always has been, lucky to be surrounded by people who either know not to ask questions he’ll trip over or who already know what he does. His only other defense is Cap’n-styled passive aggressiveness, and Miles doesn’t deserve that. It’s almost entirely reserved for Tony Stark anyway. “Sometimes,” he answers himself firmly.

Miles chews on the prongs of his fork as he eyes Steve speculatively, his foot still moving in a constant swing that makes the wooden legs of the stool creak quietly. “He said you and Sam like taking in strays.”

“That’s,” Steve starts, even more helpless now and a little hurt besides. “He feels guilty,” he says, frowning hard and setting aside his fork so he can prop his elbows on the tiled surface of the bar. “Sometimes I think he’s caught up in all these assumptions that he’s not wanted, when nothing could be further from the truth. He’s my best pal and he has been since we were kids. And Sam loves him like I do.”

Miles considers this. “What about me?” he asks finally, mouth full of eggs.

Steve’s frown softens into something far from a smile but less agitated than his last expression. “I’ve gotta be honest with you, Miles,” he says, shifting his arms to fold them in front of himself and lean down so they can stare each other down. “I really don’t know what I’m doing here. I’ve had a lot of responsibility but I’ve never taken care of someone, not like this. I watched James’s little sister a few times when he had a date, but that’s small potatoes.”

“Did Sam make you?” Miles guesses in a small voice. He’s not looking at Steve anymore, prodding the last of his eggs with his shoulders hunched.

“Nobody made me do anything,” Steve assures him calmly, “I had the final say and I said I wanted you. And it’s true.”

Miles drops his fork, growing frustrated. “But why?”

“Because it’s the right thing to do,” Steve says firmly. When that only gets a small scowl in reaction, he draws in a breath and exhales thoughtfully. “You’ve got a lot of fight in you, Miles. I was a scrapper when I was your age, I know the signs. You pick fights with life and you come out on top every time.” He allows himself the first small curve of a smile before adding, “Plus, you grew up in Brooklyn. I couldn’t let one of my own get stuck with some family from Queens.”

Miles gives a partial smile back. “ _Sam_ ’s from Harlem.”

“And I forgive him for that,” Steve jokes, and almost melts in a puddle of relief when Miles laughs. “Actually, I spent a lot of time in Harlem when I was a little older than you.”

“Yeah?” Miles says as he gets back to his eggs, “Doing what?”

“Things you definitely don’t want to hear about, trust me,” James says from the doorway with a vicious grin, toting an empty coffee mug and dressed in Jessica Rabbit pajama bottoms this time. Steve turns pink and coughs, sticking his face back into his juice to smother his embarrassment. “It’s a lot less exciting and a lot more gay than whatever you’re thinking.”

“Sounds exciting to me,” Sam jeers behind him, heading straight for the coffee pot to pour himself a cup. He waggles his eyebrows Steve as he leans back against the counter.

Miles’s mouth falls open in a low, grossed-out groan, shoving his hands over his ears in horrified exasperation. “I gotta get ready for school,” he announces, fleeing the kitchen with a chatter of good-natured laughter in his wake.

\- - -

SHIELD occupies an exceedingly boring office building with eight stories above ground and at least fifteen below, but Steve’s only been inside a handful of times since moving to New York, and always only at Director Hill’s behest. Instead he usually heads to Stark tower for any mission debriefings or Avenger meetings, since Tony owns the Avengers Initiative now and they only collaborate with SHIELD when it suits their needs. He doesn’t always like it, but at least he’s never lured into shady janitorial jobs.

But Sharon’s still in SHIELD medical detainment and it’s almost been a full day, so he goes and ignores his discomfort with SHIELD elevators so he can head to one of the lower levels and visit her.

Maria is sitting at Sharon’s bedside, sock-clad feet up on the bed and an entire office’s worth of paperwork on her lap. She hasn’t seen much combat since she became Director but she looks worse-off than Sharon, which is saying something considering Sharon survived a series of explosions yesterday.

Sharon is reading a paperback but when Steve slips into the room she grins and puts the book aside, rolling her eyes at Steve’s offering of flowers and gesturing with her uninjured arm for him to put them with the plethora of others already gathered. “Come to assuage your guilt, Captain?” she asks teasingly, eyes crinkling at the corners. When Steve grimace-smiles, she laughs. “Relax, Steve. The sling comes off in a week.”

“Three,” Maria corrects without looking up from her ipad.

Sharon makes a ‘can you believe this?’ face, nose wrinkled and forehead bunched, but when Steve doesn’t smile, she frowns lightly. “I have a month of physical therapy, tops, and I can probably get back in the field,” she says earnestly. “And I haven’t seen this much of Maria in two weeks.”

“Ugh, this paperwork is melting my eyes out of my skull,” groans Maria on cue.

“And,” Sharon says, brandishing her book, “I get to catch up on six years’s worth of pleasure reading.”  

 Steve leaves an hour and two cups of gross medical bay coffee later, a grin forming out in the hall when he hears Maria grumble “god, _finally_ ” in his wake and crawl up onto the bed and beneath the covers. His superb sense of hearing isn’t listed on most evaluation records.

He heads quickly towards the elevators, weaving around uniformed agents and doctors alike, until he sees Pepper Potts step out of the center elevator with Yinsen on her hip and a vase of flowers in her free hand.

“Steve,” she greets warmly. Yinsen immediately reaches for him, and he obligingly hoists the baby up.

“What are you doing here?” Steve asks, grinning as Yinsen goes for his glasses. It was almost normal wearing them now, so he’d forgotten to take them off.

“Oh, well you know Maria and I got very close while she was working for us,” says Pepper, taking the opportunity to check her phone with her now-babyless hand. “When I heard her partner was injured I thought I’d stop by –” she peters out, looking up and smiling faintly. “You okay?”

“Ah, yeah,” Steve says unconvincingly, stretching an uncoordinated smile on his mouth. Yinsen’s pulled his glasses off entirely and is gumming them wetly, content in his arms.

Pepper’s expression edges into a patiently kind but knowing look, a little line between her eyebrows.

“Wow, jeez, am I that obvious?” Steve stumbles out, and Pepper nods with another consoling smile. “I’m gonna chalk this one up to you being especially perceptive, if you don’t mind. My professional ego can’t take another blow right now,” he adds, mostly sort of joking. He bounces Yinsen lightly when the boy starts to fuss.

“Steve,” Pepper chastises, “Surely you don’t blame yourself for Sharon?”

Steve’s smile is guilty. “Chalking that one up too.”

Yinsen gurgles again, leaning backwards in Steve’s arms to make hands at his mother, and Pepper smiles at them both as she plucks the glasses from Yinsen’s chubby fist and trades them with Steve for her son. “He’s probably hungry,” she says, and Steve follows her into the open waiting area near the lifts where there’s some uncomfortable seating and ugly potted plants. She opens the front of her blouse and puts Yinsen to her breast. “I don’t think Sharon would be happy to know you’re discrediting her valuable field work like that,” Pepper says. Steve fidgets and she tilts her head to watch him. “You know the way I hear it, if she hadn’t caught you, you would have _died_. In _Texas_.”

Steve rubs the back of his neck anxiously, not meeting her eyes. “Well the army never got done testing my ability to withstand high temperatures and exposure to flame,” he says conversationally, “For all we know –”

“Please don’t talk about yourself like a science experiment, Steve,” Pepper interjects kindly. Steve smiles, too startled to feel guilty, and she smiles back. “I get that a lot from Bruce.”

Steve busies himself with wiping some of the pasty spittle from his glasses on the inside of his jacket, shoulders slumped with sudden exhaustion. “You know I’d be just as wound up about it if it had been a man who’d caught me. I’ve never thought any different.”

“Doesn’t make it better,” Pepper admits, rubbing Steve’s shoulder. She adjusts the perch of his glasses when he puts them back on. “You live in a world of normal people, Steve. You can’t appoint yourself personally responsible for all of us.”

“No but I can damn well try to protect you,” Steve says sharply, face tight with anger. He immediately softens and rubs at his forehead. “I’m sorry, Pep. I’ve been off my game lately.”

Pepper passes Yinsen back to him so she can fix herself up. “They do that, don’t they,” she agrees, rooting around in her purse for a bottled water. “I never thought I’d meet another person on this earth that could worry me more than Tony, and then I had his son.” She undoes the cap and takes a long swallow, tilting her head back in satisfaction when she’s done. “So how’s it going?”

“Good? Better?” Steve guesses helplessly, laughing. “You know for some reason I get the impression I embarrass the hell out of him in public.”

“You?” says Pepper, feigning surprise, “No. Never.”

Steve smiles and it’s a sober one. “We had a good talk today. I don’t like keeping the Initiative a secret from him but it’s a little much to drop on his shoulders right now.”

“ _Please_ tell me nobody’s _actually_ falling for the Clark Kent thing,” Tony implores loudly as he walks in, grabbing the back of a chair and twirling it so he can sit in it backwards. “Do you usually do a little spit-curl too?”

Steve glares at him.

“It’s almost as contrived as this whole foster kid story you’ve got going on.”

“Tony!” Pepper says angrily.

Tony tips the chair on its legs. “Seriously, Rogers, what’s really going on here? You and Robin the Man Wonder putting up Fury’s love child?”

Steve’s eyes narrow further. “Is that supposed to be funny?”

“No more funny than the smell of whatever you and the former Director are up to, I’m sure,” he drawls.

Steve moves to stand and hand Yinsen back to Pepper, but Pepper speaks first, her voice tight and low, “That boy just lost his mother and his father, Tony. You of _all people_ should maybe think about being a _little_ sensitive about this.”

Tony leans forward, staring at her. “So you read the file?”

“What file?” Steve demands, handing the baby over.

Pepper takes Yinsen back from Steve, shaking her head in frustration. “Yes,” she sighs, “I read the damn file.”

Steve looks sharply between the two of them. “What file?” he asks again.

“Relax, Lady Liberty,” Tony says with a wave of his hands, “Just the OCFS paperwork. Everything else on him is sealed up nice and tight by SHIELD.” He patters his fingers on the top of the chair before shoving up and out of it. “I can’t even get his dental records.”

“Since when can SHIELD hide anything from you?” Steve challenges him in a growl.

Tony feigns a considering squint. “Uh, probably since sometime around when their present Director scalped all my hacking techniques for her own dirty, dirty uses and ditched my company for this place.”

Steve grits his teeth as he steps forward, moving towards Tony so quickly the shorter man almost topples backwards. “I told you to stay away from my kid, Stark,” he murmurs in dark warning.

Tony stares up at him wonderingly. “He’s ' _my_ kid' now, already?” he asks, turning his face to follow Steve’s sudden sidestep. “Who _is_ this kid, Cap?”

“Pepper,” Steve bids as he leans down to kiss her cheek. He skims a fingertip over Yinsen’s nose and Yinsen gargles out a pleased giggle. “You might want to wait a few more minutes before you pay Sharon a visit,” Steve adds congenially as he walks away. “She’s still getting examined.”

\- - -

“It’s _all over the internet_ ,” Ganke says solemnly at the lunch table, fussing over his ipad as he scrolls through articles without reading them. Pictures of Spider-Man standing on a bench with a megaphone clenched in his gloved fist head every single one. “It was trending last night on Twitter _and_ Facebook.”

“Yeah?” Miles comments blandly, chewing on his cafeteria-made burrito as he glances only half-interested at Ganke’s screen. “What’re they saying?”

“Welllll,” Ganke starts, his tongue sticking to the roof of his mouth as he hesitates. When Miles gestures impatiently, he blurts, “Everyone thinks Spider-Man and your mom were lovers or something and that’s why Spidey disappeared except for the protest.”

“What?” Miles says blankly. His eyebrows knit together and he turns away bitterly, a hand rising to block his eyes from the suddenly overly bright overhead lighting.

 “Everybody’s saying it,” Ganke insists. “It’s not like they know any better.”

Miles scrubs at his face nervously. “I guess it’s better than them figuring out who I am,” he mumbles tonelessly, pushing his tray away with a sudden violent lack of appetite. “Not that it matters. Spider-Man is over.”

“Don’t say that,” Ganke implores desperately.

“Even if it wasn’t Spider-Man’s fault my mom died,” Miles starts, testing out how that phrase feels in his mouth, “It’s still why my dad split. And there’s no way I could sneak out of Steve and Sam’s house.”

“You totally could!” Ganke says in his loudest whisper, leaning forward over the lunch table and gesturing madly. “You’ve got that huge window right there!”

“Steve checks on me like every five minutes,” Miles says sardonically.

Ganke eyes him suspiciously. “You said he stopped.”

“Okay, mostly. It doesn’t matter. Besides, I…” Miles sucks at the inside of his cheek and sighs, shoulders slumping, “I like it there. I don’t want to mess anything up.”

Ganke looks like he’s going to argue, but Kate comes over to their table with a tray of her own and a soft frown of concern. “You guys okay?” she asks, uncertain, biting her lower lip and tucking a strand of her pink bangs back behind her ear. Her patented cycle of Apprehensive Girlfriend gestures.

“You look nice today,” Miles says, partly out of compulsion and partly to change the subject.

“You wouldn’t understand what we’re saying anyway,” Ganke tells her primly.

Kate’s eyes narrow and she wrinkles her nose. “I speak _six languages_ and can write _nine_.”

Ganke’s haughty expression dissipates somewhat.

“Whatever,” Kate says forcefully, putting her tray down beside Miles and sitting down abruptly. She glances at Ganke’s ipad briefly, scowling when he snaps it up and holds it against his chest to block the screen from view. “You don’t have to tell me what you’re talking about,” she says in frustration, “Just don’t be jerks about it.”

“I’m sorry, Katie,” Miles apologizes immediately.

Ganke mutters, “Yeah.”

She heaves a sigh and prods at her lunch with a plastic fork. “As long as you’re okay,” she murmurs to Miles, bumping their knees together beneath the table.

“I’m okay,” he says immediately.

Kate tilts head and gives him a sympathetic look. “You’re really brave, Miles,” she says, soft and tender.

Miles immediately scowls and looks away. “No I’m not.”

“You just lost your parents two months ago and you’re already back in school and adjusting to living with your new family. It’s like nothing can keep you down.” Her expression softens further, her smile small and sweet as she reaches up to cradle his face and draw it back towards her. “Nothing can keep you down,” she repeats in a whisper.

“Not this again!” Ganke moans indignantly, rolling his eyes right before he covers them with his ipad as his best friends start making sloppy wet noises across from him.

It takes five minutes for a staff member to finally tell them to break it up. By then, Miles is grinning too wide to take any threat of detention seriously.

\- - -

Miles stares at the rumpled spandex taking up residence in the bottom of his locker for a long moment before gathering it up and shoving it into his bag. Beside him, Ganke whispers a reverent, “Yes!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another long chapter for you spoiled brats. ;) I've seen y'all chattering about fwfyaab on Tumblr and I appreciate every word just like I appreciate every comment you leave. I know there are a lot of folks apprehensive about the concept of Sam and Steve taking in Miles, and I appreciate you taking the risk and reading this story anyway. 
> 
> Enjoy your weekend! Spidey's going to enjoy his.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quick reminder that there was a chapter posted on Friday, so if you haven't yet, read that one (and perhaps comment?) first!
> 
> Content warning for this update: there is a racist slur used towards the end of the chapter.

“Thanks for coming on such short notice, Darcy.”

“Right, of course, it’s not like when you called I was in my glorious early twenties on a Friday night and I had actually _washed my hair and_ _put on a dress_ and was literally _just_ about to unleash my dance freak at an exclusive club I had to wait _four hours_ to get into or anything, that would be _totally crazy_ , right? I mean, it’s me we’re talking about. Me, standing here, in _high heels_.”

“I’m not comfortable leaving Miles alone for an entire weekend and Director Hill’s not sure we’ll be back before Monday. Just make sure he finishes his homework, he’s got an English paper due and he hasn’t started it yet.”

“Right-o, Cap’n Daddypants.”

“And Darcy… We still haven’t told him about the Initiative. As far as he’s concerned, we’re going to visit Sam’s sick aunt in Washington.”

“Right, yup, he thinks you’re like the Clark Kent of Stark security – which, by the way, Happy is like _totally_ P.O.’d you stole his job title and that dude is _so_ not somebody you want to make mad, you should have seen him the day I forgot my security badge and I _actually_ work for them – and Sam is Lois Lane’s hot black man cover.”

“Interesting way to put it, but y–”

“Did you know they turned Lois black in a super racist comic in the 70s? Because I didn’t either but that’s the kind of useless knowledge you pick up when you keep having to hit up your nerdy ex for a quickie because _some people_ won’t let you _actually have a weekend off_ so now you’re doomed to screw the same guy over and over even though he’s like a total bottom and sometimes a girl wants her hair pulled–”

“Well thanks for your help, Darcy.”

“No problem, Cap’n Da–”

“I will double whatever Tony paid you to start calling me that.”

“Done.”

\- - -

“Big one tonight, boys,” Natasha says grandly with her boot perched on the edge of a roof, her cocky, comfortable smirk barely visible in the complete darkness of night. A single gray cloud drifts across the starless sky behind her, momentarily obscuring the moon.

“Well we all know I like ‘em big,” Sam says with a wide grin, flexing his shoulders to unleash the full width of his wings. He draws his goggles down over his eyes and licks the gap between his front teeth, all sauce and sparks. Steve laughs, visibly embarrassed, as he pulls his masked hood on. “Man, you shoulda kept them little wings from those oldschool propaganda movies,” Sam laments playfully, flicking his fingers at the smooth side of Steve’s head gear. “We coulda done a thing of it, made ‘em up to match mine.”

Steve makes a face. “I looked like an ass with those.”

“No, he’s right, they were cute,” Natasha agrees thoughtfully, plucking a gun from her thigh holster and cocking it. “The ass thing worked for you.”

\- - -

Miles takes one look at his bedroom desk – piled high with comics, notebooks, and dirty clothes – and heads down to the den to use Steve’s desk instead. There are a handful of plastic model pieces cluttering the surface but he carefully sets them aside, grinning a little when he notices most of Steve’s in-progress work is Howling Commandos themed.

He’s looking between his laptop and the battered paperback he’s writing about when Darcy wanders in without her shoes but otherwise still dressed for a night out. She’s got a bottle of Jack in one hand and a plastic-wrapped plate of cookies in the other, and she whine-groans as she sits down on the den sofa and starts in on both.

A little line appears between Miles’s eyebrows but he doesn’t openly complain about the distraction.

Darcy watches Netflix on the Wii for a little while, loudly commentating on Sam and Dean Winchesters’ various physical attributes and personality shortcomings. “So what’s your deal?” she asks at last, red lipstick bright on the mouth of her bottle.  

“Huh?”

Darcy waves her hand vaguely. “It’s a _Friday night_ and you’re _writing an essay_.” She sits up abruptly and looks at him with a kind of bright-eyed reproachfulness that Miles has come to associate as Ganke’s default mode. “I am _totally_ all for academic excellence but this is an offensive display of _lameness_.”

Miles stares at her.

“I did _not_ get called out of the club during the middle of _Bass Down Low_ to sit here and watch you write two thousand words on _The Great Gatsby_. Pro tip: Nick is hella gay for Jay and Daisy’s the smartest person in the book.”

Miles pauses then discreetly presses backspace and holds it.

Darcy waggles her fingers again. “Tell me about yourself. Do you have a girlfriend? A boyfriend? A nonbinary person of significance?”

“Uh yeah,” says Miles, startled, “A girlfriend.”

“Tell me about her,” Darcy prompts, pulling her knees up and settling back on the couch, bringing the bottle to her chest like a stuffed animal.

Miles chews on the inside of his cheek, but he ends up smiling. “She’s a girl in my grade, but she’s way smarter than the rest of us.”

Darcy bobs her head in approval. “Compliment the brains first, I like that. Go on.” She holds up the mostly demolished plate of cookies and Miles grins as he takes one.

\- - -

“You got a dude comin’ up on your five, Cap,” Sam says cheerfully in his earpiece. Something explodes close enough to the currently grounded pararescueman that the line crackles for a moment.

Steve grunts in pain as he’s grabbed by a hubcap-sized fist, massive fingers squeezing the air from his lungs in a tight whoosh. “Unless he’s bigger than the one I’m dealing with right now, Falcon,” Steve says through bared teeth, “Can you maybe handle that for me?”

“Uh, funny you should say that,” pants Sam in his ear. “Because it looks like this place was too ambitious to settle for just _one_ giant-ass super soldier.”

“I got it,” James grumbles testily through the communicator, like he’s agreeing to stop for milk and eggs.

The grip only gets worse, and Steve flails his gloved hands over the thick cording of veined muscle running up the huge arm holding him, struggling uselessly to find a weakness as he kicks and churns. “Y’know, I can think of six things I’d rather be doing right now,” he says with the last of his air.

“Only six?” Natasha asks lightly as she drops down from above them, electrified fists catching the massive masked super soldier on either side of his blocky head. Steve topples back on the floor with a groan, rolling to avoid the staggering target.

“Yeah,” he says, scrambling back to his feet to help her take him out, “Turns out I’m not too imaginative when I’m getting my ribcage crushed.”

Natasha flips easily out of the way of a huge fist and flashes him with a smile. “Really? I get all my best ideas that way.”

\- - -

Miles stands very still in the dark, peering into the living room apprehensively as cartoony sounds of mayhem drift into the hallway. The tight collar of his costume peeks out from the loose sprawl of his hoodie, the matching mask draped partially out of his front pocket.

Darcy is perched on the living room couch with her phone held close to her primly concentrated face, her finger sweeping across the screen with meticulous ease. High-pitched battle cries follow, ushering in sounds of toppling objects and explosions.

Every so often, she stops and throws her head back with a bottle. There’s an assembly of empty ones in various sizes on the coffee table.

“Yeeee-up,” Darcy says to herself, bored and grimacing on a burp, “This is totally better than having a life.”

Miles sneaks up the stairs and doesn’t even pause before jumping out his open bedroom window.

\- - -

“Falcon!” James screams, voice sharp-pitched and agonized. He’s stuck in a partial squat on the other side of a thick metal door as it grinds noisily, entire body straining against the strength of the gears to hold it open. His metal arm’s plates purr and shift, refitting for better endurance, but his human fingers are wet with blood, flesh strained to tearing beneath the constant pressure. His teeth grind audibly as he tilts his head back and shouts, sweaty, singed hair in his face.

“Just hold it!” Sam snarls back, burying a knife hilt-deep in the unarmored neck of an assailant. He lets it go and ducks around the falling body, breaking into a full-out run towards the door. “Shit, shit, shit,” he says, keeping his head down as bullets follow his frantic footsteps.

James’s knees buckle, and he loses several inches before he hardens his pose again. “Cap’s gonna bury me if you get stuck in there,” he rasps, utilizing his communicator.

“After all the time he spent digging you up?” Sam jokes breathlessly, face contorted in a grimace as he runs. He takes out two more armed men and a woman, punching one and retrieving the gun from his holster to shoot the others. “Nah. He might kick your ass, though.”

“Fucking _hurry_ ,” James hisses, blood pattering the floor. “Christ, the Commandos never took this long.”

“Hate harder, grandpa,” Sam says. He spots the straining door at the end of the mostly dark corridor.

“Falcon, behind you!” Natasha shouts in Sam’s ear, and Sam turns instead of ducks just in time to catch a giant fist to the head. He hits the concrete floor in a whoosh of dust, grunting in pain, and as the super soldier’s shadow looms over him, he smacks at his harness, and his wings deploy with a noisy grind of metal against the wall. He shoots forward on his back, propelled along the floor as the super soldier pursues.

James cries out and his human hand releases the door, metal grinding down several inches. He gathers the wounded hand to his chest and drops to one knee to better hold the door one-handed.

Sparks fly around Sam as his wings scrape along the walls, keeping him just a breath ahead of the giant. He tilts his head back just enough to get an idea of how far away the door is before he yanks the wings back in, shooting neatly beneath the falling metal and rolling across the floor like a flung doll.

“About fucking time,” groans James, releasing the door with an echoing slam.

“You keep mouthing off like that, doorman, and you can forget about getting a tip,” Sam says breathlessly, sprawled on his back.

“Winter, head back to the west wing, I’ll meet you there for medical assistance. Falcon, you’re back on surface with Cap and Hawkeye,” Natasha says in their ears, and Sam whines out a groan. “Sorry, boys. This op’s far from over.”

“Somebody better be paying me for this,” grumbles Sam as he gets up. “You know saving the world ain’t half as much fun as it should be.”

\- - -

Miles lets out a wild whoop as he swings between towering, glass-faced buildings, throwing his arms out wide for one long moment of prolonged flight. Wind rushes and churns around him, pounding the tight material of his costume, but he feels nothing beyond sheer exhilaration as he sweeps up and falls down in a graceful arc. He can see himself in the windows, black and red and wild.

At the last second he shoots another web and swings forward in a low-dipping loop. Birds flutter indignantly around him as he sweeps past a rooftop roost, feathers tumbling in his wake.

The city blazes bright around him as he sails through its heart, people turning when he’s spotted and surging forward, clapping and shouting as he passes low over Times Square. Cellphones follow him, screens illuminated with his momentary thumbs-up, flashes heralding his swinging departure.

“I missed you!” a little Korean girl screams as he flies over the sidewalk.

Spider-Man is home for the first time in two months.

“Woooo!” he hollers at the top of his panting lungs, goosebumps racing across his arms. As though on cue, a pair of cop cars speed past beneath him, dodging traffic with sirens blaring and flashing.

Miles grins behind his mask and webslings after them.

\- - -

It is a very long night and nobody sleeps.

\- - -

Sam groans as he leans back against an unmarked van, his one remaining goggle lens glinting in the harsh blanket of sunrise. He’s bruised up and down and probably nursing a cracked rib or two, but he smiles anyway when Steve trots over to check on him, hoisting his shield onto his back and clicking it in place. “You gotta stop taking me on your business trips, sunshine,” he huffs, laughing, “The jetlag is like a giant kick to the head.”

Sam lets Steve help him into a proper standing position before they kiss, long and slow and pointedly ignoring the grunts of struggle coming from the van. “We’re visiting your sick aunt,” he reminds Sam playfully, pressing their foreheads together and wishing his mask didn’t distance their skin.

“Yeah, she’s crazy when she not feeling well,” Sam says, grinning.

“If you two lovebirds are done, we’ve got another checkpoint to hit,” Tony’s tinny Iron Man voice points out from somewhere above them.

“Ain’t worried about it yet cus _no_ we are _not_ done,” Sam sasses, reaching up to cup Steve’s jaw as he splits his busted lip back open with the force of their kiss.

“Javis,” asks Tony as the iron mask flips up to reveal his annoyance, “How many hotels have vacancies in the area?”

“Eleven, sir,” the AI reports back blandly.

“Hey, Jarvis,” Sam says, tilting his head back enough to peer up at the man in the suit above him, “Tell Tony to shut the hell up for me.”

“Mr. Stark,” Jarvis intones, “I have been asked to inform you –”

“Shut up, Jarvis,” says Tony, and his boots burst with fresh energy as he shoots off.

\- - -

“You look exhausted,” Kate accuses fitfully as she lifts her head from Miles’s chest, fixing him with her patented Apprehensive Girlfriend frown. They’re sprawled out on top of his still-made bed, fully dressed. Miles turns his eyes away from her guiltily and laces their fingers together over his stomach.

“I didn’t really sleep last night,” he says, because a fib that’s actually the truth is the easiest route.

“Why didn’t you call me? Or Ganke?” she presses, the concern in her voice so tender it suddenly irritates him.

Miles sits up abruptly but is careful not to knock her off the side of his bed. The last thing he needs is to accidentally expose his abilities by flinging his worried girlfriend onto the floor.

“I’m okay, Katie,” he insists shortly, trying to keep his temper in check. He really is exhausted. He rubs a hand over the top if his head compulsively. “I’m kinda sick of everybody worrying about me all the time,” he confesses.

When Kate sits up and slides an arm around his back, her chin perching on his slumped shoulder, he sighs and relaxes. “Can you just believe I’m okay? Please,” Miles pleads.

“Okay,” Kate says quietly, tilting her head until their heads bump together gently. Miles butts her back and she laughs, quiet and comfortable. “I’m sorry,” she adds, but it’s light-hearted.

The bedroom door swings open abruptly, revealing a stumbling Darcy wearing what appears to be one of Sam’s jogging sweatshirts over last night’s dress. The excess material pools around her arms and stomach. “Nobody’s getting pregnant in here, right?” she asks blearily, a hand lifted to her tangled curls.

Kate and Miles stare at her blankly.

“You’ve got a future ahead of you,” she says seriously, snaking her arm around before pointing vaguely towards Kate. She has to clutch the door with her other hand to keep from falling. “Don’t make it way harder by gettin’ babyfied.”

Miles grunts, “What?”

“Or,” continues Darcy, wobbling, “ _Way_ more importantly, don’t _ever_ intern for super nerdy but strangely sexy astrophysicists who hit big gorgeoug smiling norse guys with their cars. You’ll be stuck questioning your sexuality for like _years_ and be really seriously poor because there is _no_ money in interning and then before you know it you’re working for Tony Stark and dating a straight guy who wants it in his butt more often than Captain freaking America. Which is _totally_ cool and _rock on_ Ian but-”

 “Are you drunk?” Kate questions loudly, her expression sharp and annoyed.

Darcy seems to consider this before shrugging helplessly. “His dads have like the best-stocked liquor cabinet I’ve ever seen and _I’ve_ been bunking with Peps and Tony for like two years now. Plus I am seriously bored and stuck here and I _hated_ The Babysitters Club.” She makes a face and burps.

Kate and Miles exchange a look. “Let’s get you some coffee,” Kate says firmly, scooting off the bed and hustling Darcy from the doorway.

\- - -

“So how’s that paper coming?” Steve asks in a low whisper, crouched and shuffling along a bullet-scarred cement wall with his cellphone held to his ear. Hawkeye is crab-walking just behind him, an arrow drawn tight on his bow, body tense and ready.

“Why are you whispering?” Miles questions on the other line, perplexed and a little dubious. 

“Why am I whispering? Uh,” Steve says intelligently. He pauses, looking helplessly at Clint, before Clint rolls his eyes and utters a series of soft, sickly coughs. “Didn’t want to wake Sam’s aunt up,” Steve says, unable to keep some of his relief from his voice.

“He’s just never going to get the hang of covert ops,” Natasha says mournfully to Sam, who has to push his knuckles in his mouth to smother his laughter. “Did I ever tell you what _really_ happened in Hong Kong last year?”

\- - -

“My paper’s almost done. I’m actually at the library right now,” Miles lies casually as he crawls on his belly along the top of a subway train, the curved tunnel ceiling sweeping overhead in a blur. The constant roaring rush of air threatens to pull the phone from his glove-clad fingers. “I’m in the basement level so that’s probably what the interference is.”

“How’s it been with Darcy?” Sam asks with a light-hearted laugh. He’d taken the phone from Steve after Steve got into an argument with a woman’s voice that Sam casually explained belonged to a nurse.

“She’s okay,” Miles says, pausing as he comes to an escape hatch at the top. He shoulders the phone so he can loosen the bolts and start easing it open from the outside. “But I think she’s kinda an alcoholic,” he adds, peeking down at the masked man holding a gun at the terrified passengers below.

“Yeah she’s got a little problem with the juice,” Sam agrees, sounding both amused and apologetic. “You’re a little too old for a real babysitter anyhow. If anybody needs to be watched, it’s her.”

“She drank half your cabinet,” says Miles.

“Damn, okay,” Sam grunts with a laugh that’s vaguely impressed. “Well we’ll be home soon.”

“You will?” Miles asks abruptly; he’s so startled he drops the cellphone, pinging it off the gunman’s head. “Whoops, sorry!” Miles chirps as the man swears and looks up. He shoots a web down to snag his phone back, yanking it up to his ear as he bends backwards to avoid gunfire as the guy starts shooting at him.

“...after that, so prolly tonight, yeah,” Sam confirms, then adds teasingly, “Why, were you planning a party? Because it sounds like the last thing Darcy needs is access to more substances.”

“Uh, nope,” Miles says apprehensively.

“What’s all that noise?”

“Somebody’s ringtone,” Miles says quickly, skittering back along the top of the subway car as the man starts crawling up through the opened hatch. “It’s the intro to a rap song you’re too old to know. Anyway, I got to go.”

“Miles –”

Whether it was a goodbye or berating, Miles doesn’t get to hear the rest of what Sam was going to say, because while the gunman doesn’t have good enough aim to actually hit Spider-Man on top of a speeding subway train, he has good enough aim to accidentally shoot the phone from his hand.

“That was an iphone five!” Miles shouts, distressed. He flips up to his feet in a crouch, tunnel rushing past them on all sides. “I had to wait for eight hours outside of a Best Buy for that!” he laments, ducking under a shower of sparks as the man fires again. “In the snow!” Extending his wrist, he knocks the guy’s gun from his hand with a shot of web.

“Do you know how many months of allowance that phone cost me?” Miles continues to berate as he moves towards the quickly back-peddling man. “And how good I got at Smash Bandits?”

The previously-gunned gunman screams as he’s tossed over the top of the train at the next stop.

\- - -

It’s early evening by the time Miles gets home and slips back in through the window, finding Darcy exactly where he and Kate left her that morning: cuddled up in the guest bedroom with a bottle of unmarked amber liquid and a pair of Steve’s plaid pajamas. The bed, she’d complained, was way less comfortable than the Wilsons’ but admittedly smelled far less like aftershave.

He strips out of his costume and balls it up in his closet beneath the avalanche of dirty clothes already present. The car chase he’d stopped on his way home leaves him stiff as he drags on jeans and an Iron Man tee, because nobody waits longer to use their breaks – even at an intersection – than a taxi in New York.

He plods down to the kitchen and is sitting at the bar on his laptop with a glass of juice when Steve and Sam come in with James on their heels. “Hey, little man!” Sam crows as he comes over to drag Miles into a one-armed hug, “How’s my favorite essay-writer?”

“I’m good,” Miles says, grinning at the greeting. “How’s your aunt?”

“She’s good,” Sam assures him as he eases away, moving to the fridge to get himself a bottled water. His gaze slides to Steve as he takes a sip. “She’s even thinking about taking a trip to Hong Kong when she gets to feeling better,” he says wetly, leaning back against the refrigerator door.

Steve turns pink and drops his hand from where it was patting Miles’s shoulder.

\- - -

Darcy invites herself to stay Sunday night anyway because her hangover migraine is fucking legendary and she wants to sleep it off. But she’s keeping these pajamas, thanks much.

After Miles finishes his paper, Sam urges him to come play Cards Against Humanity in the dining room. Everyone seems as exhausted as he is, but as the cards are slapped down on the table, laughter and teasing comes easily. To the surprise of everyone except a faintly smirking James, Steve mops the floor with all of them.

Sam and Steve both hug Miles goodnight and it feels okay.

\- - -

“The city is entering its third month of near-daily protests after an officer shot and killed an unarmed woman following a botched bank robbery in Brooklyn. Witnesses say the woman, who was not involved in the robbery but was a patron there, was negotiating with Officer Thomas Whitman after he tried to arrest wanted vigilante Spider-Man, who is credited with restraining the suspects and saving the fourteen people inside the bank while police were still establishing a perimeter outside. The NAACP has called the officer’s comments regarding the victim racist hate speech, and has challenged the NYPD to hold the officer accountable for the woman’s death. Spider-Man himself appeared at a rally this week in–” the screen abruptly goes black, leaving the dark living room entirely silent save for the inconsistent cough of the A/C.

Thomas Witman tosses the remote down. He moves to stand at the window, a gun visible where it’s shoved in the back of his pants, peering apprehensively through the blinds at the empty street outside. It’s as stranded as it should be on a Sunday night, but it’s only a matter of time until some assclown from 4chan finds and leaks his address now that the news is giving more than a passing mention to the protesting. He scrubs the sweat from his forehead before it leaks into his bloodshot eyes.

“Buncha hooting monkeys, rioting all over the fucking place,” he grumbles outloud as he shuffles back towards his couch. “Let the whole fucking zoo show up. Somebody else wanna jump in front of my gun too? Fine the fuck by me.”

There’s a garden of crunched beer cans and trampled newspapers scattered across his coffee table and the carpet beneath. He paws at the cans until he finds one that’s still mostly full, lifting it to his lips for a sip of lukewarm piss water.

The brick that comes smashing through his window hits him between the shoulders, showering glass across the carpet in a beautiful burst of glittering shards. “What the fuck!” he screams, ducking forward and spitting beer all over himself. He turns, dribbling alcohol down his chin and reaching for his smarting back instinctively.

Through jaggedly broken window, a brown bottle is thrown. The greasy tatter of fabric stuffed down its neck burns bright in the darkness, casting light on Whitman’s angry face as he wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. The flame flickers as it sails into his living room, bursting in a brilliant flash of orange when the bottle hits his partially turned body and erupts.

A second bottle is thrown, but screaming Whitman is too busy already burning to notice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, comments, kudos, and recommending this to your friends are the rewards you guys give me that keep me going. You all are the reason this story hulked out from its originally intended 20k length.
> 
> There will be no second chapter on Friday this week because I won't be available, but Monday's update starts the plot ball rolling, so look forward to it!


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning for this update: There is a scene in which two characters engage in d/s-themed sex with questionable consent due to one character possessing a structurally empowered role over the other. Drop me a line if this is potentially triggering to you and I'll send you an altered copy of this chapter.

“Somebody’s gonna have to tell him,” one of the two agents murmurs apprehensively, watching the surveillance feed with a pen in the corner of her mouth. She’s black, thick hair gathered into two tufty afro puffs, red-framed glasses matching the vibrant shade of lipstick she’s wearing. “If Director Hill’s gonna grant him furlough to go visit his son’s deathbed, somebody should _prolly_ let him know the guy’s dying in the first place.”

The laboratory on screen is shown in shades of blue, a single man in a labcoat with rolled-up sleeves pacing its length, busying himself with various equipment and scribbling notes on a clipboard. Tall, white, fairly fit, and with brown hair in the beginning stages of thinning, he looks like any other unassuming scientist in a lab, occasionally adjusting the glasses on the tip of his nose and pursing his lips thoughtfully.

“They won’t let him leave,” says the second agent, his small mouth drawn into a sharp, thoughtful frown. He’s Chinese, dark hair styled short and tidy, and he looks too young to be perched in a control room overlooking half a dozen SHIELD security feeds and toting a gun in a holster on his hip. 

“Director Hill is gonna let him have a supervised visit,” the first agent insists, looking up from the yuri manga she’s been reading. “You’ve been on his security longer than I have. He’s _non-violent_. He’s done everything they’ve told him to do. The worst thing I’ve ever seen him do in there is pick his wedgies and not wash his damn hands.”

The second agent’s mouth quirks slightly. “He does that because he knows we’re watching.”

“ _That_ is sick. But, somebody’s still got to tell him.” She goes back to her book, only glancing up again when her companion rises and leaves the control room. “Oh, but he do got it bad,” she says to herself in mild but sympathetic disgust, turning the page.

\- - -

“You’re a dedicated little thing, aren’t you?” Dexter Whitman croons in a faded southern accent, his face partially obscured by the fog residue his breath leaves on the glass he’s crowded far too close to. Spindly branches wind their way through the length of the tank, glistening white web stretched in tidy swirls between them like unmoving smoke. It’s a beautiful display.

“I know you’re not talking to the arachnid,” the agent says, his deadpan visible on the other side of the tank.

“Tim,” Dexter greets in mocking cheer, stepping back from the tank and watching the agent circle around it. “How long has it been since you last sauntered so sweetly into my lab on some falsified suspicion to check up on me? An entire week?”

“Your son is dying,” Tim says shortly.

Dexter licks his top lip contemplatively. “And which one would that be?”

“Thomas Whitman,” Tim says tonelessly, chin rising slightly as he watches the man’s face for reaction. “Officer Thomas Whitman, who shot and murdered an unarmed civilian a few months ago.”

“Because he wanted to arrest Spider-Man,” Dexter adds, stepping away from the agent and moving back towards his work. He bends over and fixes his eye against a microscope, fiddling with the adjustments. “Was that everything you needed, Agent 83, or did you want a roll in the hay for old times’ sake, too?”

“Why was your son so keen on arresting that vigilante, Dex?” Tim asks, sharp and low.

Dexter feigns an exaggerated look of innocent confusion. “Well, I couldn’t tell you. I haven’t seen that boy since his mother came a’knocking for child support checks. Why do you ask?”

“Because you _created_ Spider-Man,” Tim growls, slamming an open palm down on the table and jarring all of the equipment spanning its surface.

“I imagine every police officer in New York worth his badge wants to arrest Spider-Man,” Dexter says dismissively, sliding his microscope back into place. “He _is_ operating outside the law, and some people _frown_ on that in civilized society.”

“Dex,” Tim hisses through clenched teeth.

“Look, I know you’d love to uncover some dramatic conspiracy in which I convinced one of my many estranged children to apprehend the sole survivor of my genetic experiments, but in order to unearth such a plot, it would have to actually exist,” Dexter murmurs, turning to watch Tim seethe before him with a pleasant, plastic smile. “I’ve never had more than a two-word conversation with Thomas and that was more than enough to prove he wasn’t worth my time.”

“Someone threw two Molotov cocktails in through his living room window,” Tim says calmly, squaring his slim shoulders. “He isn’t expected to live until the weekend.”

“A tragedy,” Dexter drawls sarcastically, eyebrows furrowing in building annoyance. “Now get out. I have more important things to do than watch you feign meanness when you feel _nothing_ of the kind.” He turns his face back towards him, smirking sharply as he adds, “ _Agent_.”

Tim returns the look, turning on his heel and sweeping from the lab through the sliding metal door. It glides shut in his wake, leaving Dexter alone with his insect tanks and the bubble and hum of his equipment.

\- - -

**STARTING TWO YEARS AGO**

A well-dressed young man jogs to catch up with Dexter’s quick gait, weaving around a plethora of labcoat-garbed men and women in the corridor. An OsCorp logo is seared across the wall, indenting the otherwise smooth metallic surface. “Dr. Whitman,” the young man says to single him out.

Dexter’s smile is indulgent, but he doesn’t slow his pace until after the boy reaches him and falls into step at his side. “Timothy,” he greets, sounding mildly annoyed despite his pleasant expression.

Dexter swipes a card through the lock on the door and enters his laboratory. “You know most of us around here expect our people to be on time in the morning,” he drawls and arches an eyebrow as he drops his briefcase down on the table, “ _Especially_ on their first day.”

The young man’s expression remains neutral, but he says, “I’m thirty-six minutes early.”

Dexter’s smile blooms wide and pleased. “So you are,” he agrees, moving over to a computer to type something quickly, “And a _disagreeable little shit_ besides. I _like_ you.”

Tim’s answering smile is small but soft.

\- - -

“He’s already years ahead of his predecessors,” says Tim as he sips from a Starbucks cup and enjoys the patter of endlessly spilling water in the fountain behind him. He’s perched on the smooth brim, watching college students and young families mill around the park, laughter and conversation backdropped by the rustle of a summer breeze in the trees. He takes another sip. “He’s ambitious. He’ll meet his goals within months.”

The aging black man in a navy hoodie beside him fiddles with his phone. “If that’s even possible,” he says amicably, eyebrows raising over his sunglasses.

Tim lowers his cup. “It’s possible.”

The man gets up, shrugging his shoulders to work out some of the sitting tension. “Just keep me in the loop,” he says lightly, and walks away as he answers his phone.

\- - -

“The Parkers had a negligently _narrow_ view of this project’s potential.”

“I’m not sure if I consider the possibility of curing every human disease in history a _narrow view of potential_ , Dr. Whitman.”

“Please, Timothy; ‘Dexter’. It’s only appropriate when I’m balls-deep in your ass.”

“Nnn. _Dex_.”

“Now, while curing serial weakness may seem like an _admirable_ pursuit, it’s a _failure_ in the long term. Humans are still just a species. A species is strengthened by the removal of weakness from the gene pool. And the _ideal_ removal is death, because otherwise, you’re just perpetuating _inferior genes_.”

“I’d argue that the removal of the potential for disease would negate the inferior nature of the genes… Ah—nnn. Do you always debate Natural Selection during sex?”

“Only with my _favorite_ interns.”

Tim’s head is bowed, teeth bared as he’s jolted forward repeatedly, hands gripping the edge of the table as OsCorp-labelled beakers rattle noisily in front of him. Dexter has a hand on his hip and another roving across his chest, fingertips gliding over smooth, half-circle scarring at the bottom of Tim’s pec before plucking at a hardened pink nipple. They move together with familiarity, sharp thrusts petering off into slow, circular grinding, sweat running cool in the chilly airconditioning of the laboratory.

“The true potential of this work is not fixing faulty human genetics,” Dexter says in Tim’s ear, his voice a rough exhale of air that has Tim shivering, “It’s creating a _superior_ species that doesn’t have homo sapiens’ failings.”

“That sounds _rather_ like playing god,” Tim says breathlessly, head tilting back to rest against Dexter’s shoulder.

“I’m a scientist. I _am_ god,” Dexter growls as he bites the shell of Tim’s ear, shoving into him hard enough to force Tim forward on his belly, toppling beakers in the process. As glass tumbles over the edge of the table and smashes across the floor, he breathes, “Now touch yourself.”

“Dex,” Tim whines, shoving a hand beneath himself, ass arching into Dexter’s quick thrusts. “Oh – oh, nnn.”

“We are getting close to seizing the key to that superior species,” Dexter pants, moving his hand to grip the back of Tim’s neck and hold his face pressed into the scattering of notes and paperwork on the table. “Come.”

\- - -

The man’s navy hoodie is worn beneath a heavy coat this time. The park is largely abandoned, a cold front tinging the sky gray and leaving the trees skeletal and unmoving, but the fountain is still pattering noisily.

Tim sits down and takes a distasteful sip of his coffee like it’s cold. “I don’t have anything new to report,” he says tightly.

“I got other sources saying Whitman’s close to human trials,” says his companion. He draws his sunglasses down and eyes Tim sharply, one clouded and dead. “ _Real_ close.”

Tim’s mouth is a sharp line. “Not close enough to be concerned.” He pauses, mouth hovering over his coffee. “Or interested, as the case may be.”

The man smiles bitterly and shakes his head. “You’ve done good work, Agent,” he says conversationally, pushing his shades back into place, “Just as impressive as your work on the Banner/Ross op in Virginia. You make a pretty good intern.” He tips his chin up, watching dark storm clouds build in the north. “I want to hope you’re an even better agent.”

“Sir,” Tim says. He stands and throws out his coffee as he walks away, shoving his hands in his pockets.

\- - -

Dexter comes into the lab with a bottle of champagne and two glasses, an almost manic smile on his face as he sweeps past the many tables and perches his spoils on the desk Tim currently occupies. “Your ex-wife called,” Tim says lightly, not looking up from his computer.

“Which one?” Dexter asks as he plucks the keyboard right out from beneath Tim’s rapid fingers and tosses it onto the floor with a plastic crunch.

Tim looks up, impassive, one eyebrow arching in amused question. “It was hard to tell, most of her message was barely discernable cursing.” He watches as Dexter pops the cork and begins to pour the champagne. “Your ex-husband also called,” he adds, accepting the flute Dexter forces into his hand.

“Well I only have one of those so that narrows it down _considerably_ ,” Dexter muses, smirking as he takes a sip. “Drink up, Timothy,” he encourages, leaning into the desk on one hand as he gestures with his own glass, “Norman approved the trials.”

Tim’s expression freezes. “That can’t be legal,” he says mildly, forcibly calming himself and taking a miniscule drink.

Dexter laughs, tossing back the rest of his champagne and promptly pouring himself another. “As often is the case with science,” he dismisses, licking dampness from his lower lip and turning his almost predatory gaze on Tim. “Undress,” he says thickly, wetly.

Tim doesn’t hesitate before doing so.

\- - -

“Fury was right, your work here is impeccable,” Natasha says approvingly as she looks over the files, eyes flicking up to watch the agent over the tidily assembled paperwork. Agent 83’s expression is carefully neutral despite the compliment. “This is your third time playing the covert intern for SHIELD,” Natasha notes lightly, “But your prior work’s never been so thorough.”

The agent inclines his head in a partial nod.

“Fury’s having me scramble a team to take in Whitman,” Natasha says when it’s clear he has nothing to say, dropping the file onto the steel table between them and flicking it shut with a finger. “We’ll be taking him as soon as he enters the lab, away from the other employees. Quick, clean, covert. I want you on that team.”

His eyes immediately narrow, sharp and gleaming. “I’m still in deep cover. When Whitman’s project is burned, OsCorp will move me to another lab.”

“There’s nothing in our intelligence indicating anyone else in the company is doing anything more unethical than some routine insurance fraud,” Natasha says smoothly. She meets his gaze unflinchingly. “SHIELD is pulling you out.”

Neither of them say anything for a long moment. The corners of 83’s mouth turn down and his eyes soften as he looks away and considers. “We struck a deal with OsCorp,” he guesses at last.

“Dirty deals go down every day,” Natasha murmurs, still watching him intently, “That’s how we stay funded.”

“SHIELD wants Whitman more than it wants anything else OsCorp is hiding,” 83 guesses shrewdly. “Why?”

The redhead tilts her head curiously, her thickly painted lips curving into an amused smile. “Between the two of us, you’re more familiar with what he’s capable of, Tim.” She arches a slim eyebrow. “And more familiar with the science SHIELD’s been henpecking for years.”

“Better _weapons_ only bring us so far,” he murmurs, eyes fixing on the closed folder on the table. “SHIELD wants better _soldiers_.”

They’re both silent again.

“You’re on the extraction team,” says Natasha as she stands, sweeping the file up as she heads to the door. “You’re familiar with the building and with Whitman’s lab,” she adds as she pauses in the doorway, watching him watch her, “And everything in it.”

Agent 83 sits alone for a long time after she’s left.

\- - -

There are no screams uttered when the two uniformed agents crash into a table lined with glass tanks, someone’s gun going off and shooting out an overhead light. Glass shatters and instruments topple and hit the floor with scrapes and thuds. Notes flutter and fall like feathers drifting in the wind, sparks spitting from the broken light.

Neither Agent 83 nor Black Widow move to help the crumpled men. They were dead – broken necks – long before they were flung.

“You truly were God’s prettiest angel, weren’t you?” Dexter purrs as he watches his former intern go for his gun; he throws out a hand, a burst of white webbing from his wrist snatching the weapon away, a quick flick of his arm tossing the glistening rope free. The gun flies away with it, landing uselessly across the room. “Lucifer, the most devoted, the first to betray his master.”

“I didn’t take you for a fan of Christian fable,” Tim grits out. He takes a slow step to the side, watching the scientist with deadpanned cautiousness. “Why did you do this to yourself, Dex?”

“Because the future starts with the first,” Dexter laughs, baring his teeth in a mad grin. He throws his hand out again, firing another rope of web in Tim’s direction, but it’s grabbed by a gloved hand before it’s gotten two feet out.

Black Widow wrenches the web forward, lifting her knee to bash Dexter’s face – his glasses snapping and falling free with a musical tinkle of glass on the floor – as he staggers forward. She moves quickly, looping the short line up around his neck twice, wrenching it backwards as she jumps on his back and rides him to the floor.

Dexter snarls in outrage, jerking his hand out and snapping the web so he can grab her and throw her off.

Widow hits the floor on her elbow and rolls quickly into a crouch, rich red curls tumbling down around her alert face.

“Fitting, that the peak of human capability faces off against the superior species,” Dexter drawls, blood dribbling from his nose and the corner of his right eye as he speaks.

Black Widow runs at him, electricity popping to life in her weaponized wrists; she sweeps under his first shot of webbing, jumping up to strike him in the groin area with both hands. He snarls in pain, spine going rigid, but works through the trembling agony to kick her away.

Free of the electrocution, the scientist grimaces and webs her flung body to the far wall.

“And what do you think you’re doing?” Dexter breathes out, blood on his teeth, as he turns on Tim.

“Deleting everything you’ve ever worked on,” Tim says calmly, fingers moving quickly over a keyboard as he watches the computer screen run through lines of data. “You’re a genius, but you don’t have an eidetic memory, Dex.”

“I have other drives,” Dexter sneers, walking towards him as sparks continue to dribble from the busted lights. He uses web to grab the discarded gun, catching it in his fist and aiming it at the stooped agent.

“I know. I’ve infected them all,” Tim murmurs, not looking up.

“I have my own blood,” Dexter hisses, still walking towards him, lips peeling back from his bloodied teeth. “And my source spider.”

“You didn’t really trust this enough to be the first trial,” Tim says, eyes finally lifting from the computer. “I know you didn’t actually expose yourself to an infecting bite, Dex. You were saving that risk for whoever Osborne rounded up off the streets.”

Dexter fires a warning shot into the text-scrawled whiteboard behind Tim’s head.

Tim doesn’t flinch but he does swallow. “You took what amounts to a temporary venom-based steroid. It’ll cycle out of your system in less than an hour.” He taps the top of the computer screen. “You took detailed notes.”

He’s on Tim in an instant, fist wrapped around the younger male’s throat, pinning him against the ruined whiteboard hard enough to partially strangle him. They’re several feet up from the floor, Dexter’s feet fixed to the wall like a bug’s. Tim swallows convulsively.

“I should kill you,” Dexter croons, pressing the gun into Tim’s mouth, forcing his lips into a part.

“Put the gun down, Whitman,” Black Widow says from their left. Blue light glows dim and alien from the weapon clutched in her hand. “This one packs a lot more of a punch. Spoils from Manhattan.”

Dexter drops Tim unceremoniously; as Tim falls, Dexter jerks back in surprised pain, Tim’s knife buried in the softness of his gut. Blood splatters the whiteboard as Dexter skitters up the wall towards the window. Widow fires twice but only catches the flapping drape of his labcoat before he bursts through the window and out into the spring morning.

“Agent 83,” Natasha says, hurrying forward around the desk. She crouches beside his slumped form, drawing her hand to her ear to rattle off their status to SHIELD handlers. “Tim,” she says sharply when she’s done.

“I’m fine,” Tim rasps, “None of the blood is mine.” He forces himself into a sitting position, rubbing his throat with a light wince. “There’s a tracker embedded in his abdominal wound,” he says tightly, “But he’ll remove it before long.”

“You deleted all of his work,” Nat murmurs as she helps him to his feet. She looks his face over with sharp, assessing eyes, but she’s not checking for injuries. “It’ll take years for him to replicate it for SHIELD.”

“I know that,” Tim says shortly, moving to grab a gun from the dead agents. “And so did you when you took your time burning that webbing away enough to get free.” He wipes his bloody hand clean on the thigh of his uniform, drawing in a quick breath. “He has only one successful source spider and it’s safe to assume he has it with him.”

Natasha nods curtly, and they move.

\- - -

The subway is crowded, early morning commuters rubbing shoulders as they file in to their desired trains and push to earn first dibs on the limited available seating. A pair of teenagers are gathered in the seats by the door, chatting comfortably about a Thor sighting the prior afternoon. Dexter – labcoat folded up and held in front of his stomach, his button-up shirt and slacks rumpled but passable beyond the bloodstains he’s shielding – steps close and holds a pole as the car shifts and rumbles forward.

“You know there’s supposed to be another black guy,” says the older, lanky white boy, his messy brown hair only sticking up further when he shoves his fingers through it. “The uh, the bird one.”

“Hawkeye’s white,” his young dark-skinned companion says dubiously. He’s barely out of childhood, facial features still softly defined and rounded; Dexter isn’t certain of his race.

“Naw, I’m talking about the other guy, the one that’s only with them sometimes. The Falcon.”

“I’ve seen a couple pictures,” the second boy agrees slowly, “But I don’t think he counts.”

“Black Widow counts and she’s only with them sometimes. Of course, she kinda has to count, because otherwise it would be a sausage fest, am I right?” The messy-haired teen grins when that earns him a giggle from the younger boy. “Hey, what’s your name, anyhow?”

“Don’t move, Dex,” Tim says behind him, the muzzle of a gun pressed into the small of the scientist’s back. “SHIELD doesn’t want you more than they want to not get a subway of civilians killed.”

“Is that so,” Dexter purrs, shifting his hand free of the pole. He turns slowly, smiling down at Tim with still-bloodied teeth.

“Ow!” a woman says loudly behind Dexter’s back. “Jesus, something bit me!”

Tim’s eyes go wide and he turns towards the woman instinctively. Dexter backhands him hard enough to send him flying into the sliding door. The metal crunches but holds, and Tim falls to the floor amid screams and shoving patrons.

Dexter turns to see the woman clutching at her leg slump forward, frothy saliva dribbling free of her open mouth as she falls to the floor and begins to seize. The man beside her does the same, gargling noisily, and the younger boy is the third to drop, eyes rolling up into the back of his head as he topples.

The teenage boy scrambles up from his seat, but rather than run away, he crouches and tries to roll his companion onto his back. “Stay with me, kid! Hey, can somebody else help me with these guys?”

“You can destroy my work,” Dexter murmurs as he steps forward, shoving people aside with incredible strength to reach the collapsed agent, “You can set me back _years_. But the future _will come_ , Tim. That’s the nature of time, it passes.”

Tim watches him impassively and breathes.

Dexter tilts his wrist forward, aiming for Tim’s slim frame, but only a sickly dribble of off-white liquid comes free, dripping down his fingers uselessly. “Nature of time,” he repeats to himself softly.

The train screeches to a stop, the door on the other side of the car grinding open to let in six SHIELD agents with alien-made guns. Black Widow is at the front with a split lip and a nasty smirk.

“This is gonna hurt you a lot more now,” she says in a happy coo, stepping forward and punching Dexter across the face with an electrified fist. She knees him in the face again when he goes down, seizing one of his arms to twist behind his back in an unnecessarily rough restraining hold.

Blood rolls down Tim’s temple, and he closes his eyes against the weight of Dexter’s squinted stare.

\- - -

**PRESENT DAY**

“Stupidity must very well run in the family,” Dexter drawls to his comatose son, sitting at his bedside listening to the whir and beep of the machines crowding the bed and the bustle of moment out in the hallway. Thomas’s face and arms are largely obscured with bandages. Dexter pets his fingers across the gauze on the dying man’s wrist. “But unlike your father, you accomplished absolutely nothing with your existence beyond earning me a field trip outside my laboratory prison cell.”

He sits back in his uncomfortable chair, one leg crossed over the other.

“You know, you never did tell me why that person isn’t in SHIELD custody too,” Dexter says to the shadows, smiling meanly. “The one that calls himself ‘Spider-Man’.”

Fury steps forward, sunglasses glinting briefly in the low overhead lighting. “Didn’t see a reason to hold him.”

Dexter snorts nosily and looks back down at his son. “Please. You were willing to get your hands dirty to get ahold of my genius. Am I _really_ to believe SHIELD would let the only product of _all that work_ go freely?”

Fury inclines his head. “Yep,” he deadpans slowly, his eyes no doubt wide with warning behind the lenses.

“And that truly asinine course of action was _your_ idea?”

“Keep it up with your cute little conspiracy theories and I’ll take Agent 83 off your security rotation,” Fury growls, stepping forward to loom over Dexter and grip the arms of his chair. His eye bulges over the top of his sunglasses now as he gets in Dexter’s face. “And then you can keep your _scintillating conversations_ between yourself and your goddamn clipboard.”

Dexter swallows tightly but keeps still. “Tell me, did you ever find my source spider?” he asks, voice unfurling like fiery smoke. “You must have it, to not have taken in whichever of those people survived the bite.”

Fury returns Dexter’s challenging smirk as he eases up to his full height. “Agent 83 smashed it in the subway,” he says congenially, “Didn’t he tell you?”

Dexter’s expression sours, and he turns back away abruptly.

“You’re digging for paydirt that’s just not there, Whitman,” Fury says with a condescending shake of his head. He adjusts his shades. “Now say goodbye to your son so I can get you back to your goddamn lab.”

Dexter’s fingers grip his son’s thick, masculine fingers, bones bulked up beneath the flesh beyond the tiny child bones he’d felt in his grip when he was a boy. His fingers curl briefly into the rasp of bandages before he releases him entirely and stands.

Fury keeps on his heels as they leave the dimly lit room.

\- - -

“I need your dirty laundry!” The shout and subsequent footsteps are muffled by the closed door, an elderly white woman pushing it open moments later with a disapproving frown on her face. “Are your ears just not accepting the sound of my voice anymore?” she demands crossly, putting her hands on her hips.

The boy sprawled on the bed grins guiltily, plucking headphones free of his ears. “Sorry,” he mutters genuinely, half-crawling out of bed to grab some of the clothes scattered across his bedroom floor, “My bad.”

“Yes, _your bad_ ,” she agrees with a head gesture that is both shaking and nodding simultaneously. “You were supposed to bring this all down to me an _hour_ ago.”

“I got caught up thinking about college,” the boy obviously fibs, arms full of clothing that he attempts to cram into an overturned basket that he pops right-side with his foot like a skateboard. “You know me, all about the education.”

“Right,” she agrees sarcastically, stepping over to pluck a sock from the top of a shelf. She squints at the darkened corner and then makes a face. “That Spider is _still_ in here?” she says shrilly, grimacing vividly as she peers at the impressive but small collection of web. “What if this thing bites you?”

“Who, Marty McFlyeater?” the boy asks, puckering his lips thoughtfully as he turns. When his elder fixes him with a disgusted look, he shrugs his shoulder helplessly. “He doesn’t bite. He’s my pal. He eats all the bugs that get in through the attic.”

“That is _disgusting_ ,” she says, but waves a hand as she steps away to take the now overstuffed basket. She pauses suddenly, her expression softening as she takes in his sloppy appearance. “You are getting so big so fast,” she laments in a tender voice.

“Aw, c’mon now,” he says bashfully, nervously picking at his shirt.

She shakes her head and sighs at his dismissal. “You get your ass downstairs in ten minutes,” she warns him as she heads out the door, raising her voice to be heard out in the hall, “Your Uncle Ben’s coming home with pizza.”


	9. Chapter 9

Water hits his bruised shoulders in an endless cascade, pouring down his back in ever-shifting rivets as Sam settles his face into his folded arms against the tiled wall of the shower, letting the heat burn away the last dregs of sleep.

They’d skipped running this morning, a weekend-long Avengers op more than enough reason to take it easy for a day or two, at least in Sam’s case. Steve would probably jog a few miles or fifty sometime later in the morning if Godzilla didn’t show up needing his ass kicked.

Sam groans softly, letting it unfurl from his chest and spill out muffled against his arms. He moves his feet, widening his stance so he can better arch the healthy curve of his ass back against Steve’s face. Steve’s got one hand up, fingers curled into Sam’s left cheek to hold him open enough that Steve can really get to him. His other hand, Sam presumes, is on his dick, because Steve’s been panting pretty heavily for a few minutes now and he’s not one to get short of breath easily.

“C’mon,” says Sam about nothing in particular. Steve’s tongue feels hotter and more present than the water splashing down his back, a constant wet heat lapping across Sam’s hole, firming up and twisting and tucking in and out with the occasional addition of a sucking kiss. Sam loves getting eaten out almost as much as Steve loves doing it, eager mouth pressing close and buzzing with constant little groans.

Steve draws back and Sam has the mind to look over his shoulder and watch him settle on his heels, jerking himself off with quick, efficient strokes, free hand roving up his chest to pluck at one of his own nipples as he meets Sam’s gaze. His hair’s a wet mess in his face, but his eyes are half-lidded and dark, tongue licking a tendril of lingering saliva from the corner of his mouth as Sam watches.

“You know you oughta be in porn,” remarks Sam as he turns completely, smearing his thumb across Steve’s lower lip. He gets his hand in Steve’s hair and pulls his head back, fisting the base of his own dick so he can tap the head in his thumb’s place. Steve’s eyelashes descend on his cheeks and he groans, mouth slack, ready. “I can hear America’s scandalized masses shelling out money already.”

“I quit show business a long time ago,” Steve says thickly, a smirk catching his lips beneath the press of Sam’s cock. “This performance is limited to a one-man audience.” His eyes close completely, face tilting to take Sam’s erection in his mouth until he’s kissing Sam’s fist, water rushing down across the both of them like endless summer rain.

“Damn shame for everybody else,” Sam purrs, gripping Steve’s dripping hair with both hands and fucking his mouth. “Other than Hong Kong, I guess,” he adds, because he’s an asshole.

Steve’s answering indignant growl is mostly hiccupped by the quick thrusting of Sam’s dick.

\- - -

“You guys look tired,” Miles comments with half-lidded eyes, his jaw cocked questioningly as his spoonful of cereal hovers in front of his open mouth. He starts to say something else but seems to think better of it, munching on his breakfast in silence while his foster folks make themselves coffee.

“Look who’s talking,” says Sam with a good-natured grin, “You’ve got some serious Monday Face, little man.”

Miles knuckles his eyes and slides his middle finger free of his fist in the process. He grins when Sam smacks him in the back of the head and tells him to watch himself. Miles pauses when he notices Steve watching them with a disgustingly sappy smile, but when Steve fumbles his cup over being caught in the act, Miles just rolls his eyes and grins.

\- - -  

Their bodies move quickly, flowing through schools of fighting from across the globe; their feet patter soft and hard in turn across the mats, the muted echoes carrying through the basement like sighs. James goes for her legs, ducking down to sweep her off her feet, but she backflips out of his reach. She flies backwards again when he comes for her, bouncing on one hand and flipping up onto the gymnastics bar at the far end of the mat.

He stays where he is, panting softly and resting his hands on his hips because that was about as close as he’s going to get her all day. He has about eighty years of on-and-off training but he’s no Natasha Romanoff. Unless he’s playing to kill, she’s got him bested.

He tugs a scrunchie from his wrist, his sweats not providing any pockets and his shirtlessness providing even less. He works his hair up into a ponytail as she flips and glides on the bars, body working like a ballerina in air. She’s sweatier than he is, long red hair splashing around her shoulders and slightly frizzed, but she’s the most beautiful thing James’s ever seen.

She stops abruptly mid-swing and stands on the bar with her hands, watching him through the curtain of her hair as she opens her legs up and holds them out long on either side. “You know I’m glad you were on this weekend’s mission,” she says.

James licks his lips because he has to. “Because it turned out to be _four_ super soldier giants,” he hazards, lips pulling into a cocky smirk that hails all the way from the streets of 1940s Brooklyn, “Or because you missed me?”

Natasha returns the smirk.

She leaps from the bar like a big cat, flipping several times and landing on her hands in front of him, balled down into an upside-down crouch; he’s about to move when she sweeps him in the face with her bare foot and follows it up with kicking him full-on with both feet in the chest. He chokes on what air doesn’t immediately escape his lungs and staggers back, and she gets to her feet and grabs his head to hold him upright while she knees him in the groin, flipping back onto her hands before he can catch her and leaping back up to wrap his neck in her thighs and throw them both down to the mat.

James lays panting within the bracket of her gripping thighs, ass truly kicked unless he wants to take it lethal.

“What do you think?” Natasha asks, light and conversational.

The black spandex of her workout pants is thin enough that he can smell her, damp with sweat but oh so much more than that. He breathes through his nose to catch his breath and can’t catch it at all. It’s almost enough to ignore the endless throb of pain that was previously his half-interested cock.

“To be honest,” he rasps, half his own voice and half the Winter Soldier’s, “You’re sending me some seriously mixed signals here, doll.”

Natasha reaches down and pulls the scrunchie free of his hair, shaking out her own and drawing it up into a sloppy bun that Tony calls white girl at the club hair. “Oh really?” she croons, squeezing his head with her thighs until his ears feel pinched, “Guess I picked up some of your bad habits.”

James licks his lips. When he speaks, it’s in low-voiced, husky Russian.

Natasha tilts her head like she’s considering what flavor of coffee to order. “You gonna wig out on me afterwards?” she asks lightly, but her tone is serious. “Tell me it’s a bad idea, kick me out?”

“Two of those times you kicked _me_ out,” James murmurs in English, his hands coming up to hold her hips.

Natasha smirks bitterly and shakes her head, getting up so suddenly that James almost whimpers at the loss of heat and her scent. “I’m the best spy in the world, Barnes. I have stuff to do.”

James gets to his feet, the pain in his groin already gone thanks to the serum but the less tangible pain that’s building hard and fast in his chest is all thanks to himself. “You talking about now or before?” he tries, forcing on a casual smile.

“Both,” Natasha says, and saunters up the nearest walkway without bothering to get her shoes.

James curses to himself in Russian, shoving his real hand through his hair.

\- - -

They move through the corridor in silence, Ganke sneaking painfully blatant glances at Miles and his exhaustion-slumped shoulders. There’s a lot of chatter going on around them, but neither take note. Their minds aren’t on school or classmates or what’s trending on Twitter. Their minds are up on rooftops and in the subway and crawling up buildings fifty stories high.

Miles lingers in front of his locker, not yet reaching for the dial on his lock. Ganke’s practically vibrating with the need to ask, and after a few more seconds go by with only the shuffle of passing students and the dull roar of their conversations, he blurts, “So? How did it feel to get back out there?”

Miles pauses. As he lowers his eyes to his lock, a smile slowly unfurls on his lips. “Pretty good,” he admits, failing to contain his grin.

Ganke’s face bursts with a wide, delighted grin, clenched fists raised to chest-level in a boyish gesture of victory. “There’s my best friend!” he cheers in a shout that’s probably supposed to pass as a whisper. He smacks Miles’s shoulder and practically bounces around him. “You’re going back out tonight, right?”

“Probably, if I can slip Sam and Steve,” Miles says as his lock unclicks. The opening door separates the two of them as Ganke breaks out in full dance, chanting something about running New York.

Miles gets his books and pauses, catching sight of a picture of his mom taped among the other scraps of paper and mini posters taking up residence on the inside of his locker door. Ganke peeks around the door.

“She’d be proud of you,” Ganke says softly.

To the shock of both boys, Miles stays smiling and says, “Yeah, I know.”

\- - -

Before Sam Wilson moved to New York, the Harlem VA clinic was mostly limited to vocational counseling and fighting with government-sponsored housing programs to get homeless vets somewhere to bed down on the regular. But he has a couple of groups set up now, some twenty-ish veterans turning up every session. The room is usually a mess afterwards – military folks or not, these are New Yorkers – and Sam takes half an hour to clean up discarded pamphlets and coffee cups and a whole host of other shit they brought in themselves.

He’s got his own office, even if it’s a closet compared to what he’d worked himself up to back in Washington. He has five times as much paperwork to do than he used to but he likes it, desk cramped with forms and folders and a couple of pictures on the wall of he and Steve in his dorky hipster glasses. There’s one of Miles he just put up last week, caught mid-eyeroll as Steve hugs an arm around him in a busy pizza joint.

That one started some questions from his coworkers, but Sam Wilson’s just another upbeat counselor who’s been in a committed relationship with a handsome white dude for five years now, so it’s not weird that he’s got a foster kid, just unexpected without him having brought it up before. He told them he just didn’t want to get everybody excited when he wasn’t sure how long it would take to get approved.

He’s got the nickname Big Daddy Wilson now, but it’s better than the corny Uncle Sam shit they’ve had going on since last July.

Sam usually heads to the Starbucks on the corner after work if he doesn’t get caught up in an impromptu one-on-one session or get bogged down with urgent paperwork and phonecalls. He and Steve are coffee addicts and their lifestyle is only partially to blame, especially on Sam’s end where superheroing is only an occasional gig.

Today Steve is picking him up so they can both get Miles from school. It’s a mostly unspoken thing that they both missed him terribly over the weekend and Sam thinks it’s okay that they’re just a little clingy. Miles had finished his (suspiciously incomplete) essay in the den with them while Steve read something on his kindle and Sam caught up on a weekend’s worth of paperwork when he could have just gone back upstairs to his own room to do it, so. Maybe they’re all a little clingy right now.

Spending the weekend being a superhero can do that to you.

So can being a family.

He’s third in line when he notices the guy closest to the counter is pulling a sky mask down over his face. He shifts and is probably holding a gun in the drape of his open jacket because he’s so tense he’s almost vibrating and the cashier is paled out and nodding.

The rest of the line doesn’t notice even when the cashier pops the register open and offers up all the big bills, which is a fair amount considering the white yuppy crowd that usually comes in here.

The dude stuffs the green in his jacket and moves away from the counter, quick and practiced.

“Just turn right the hell around, Sam,” Sam tells himself in a whisper, shaking his head slowly as the guy hurries past him for the door. “Just get your damn coffee and meet your man out front and go pick up your kid.” He can still hear the guy’s footsteps on the waxed tile floor, and he taps his fingers on the front of his jeans in a random rhythm as he considers actually listening to himself.

His civilian persona is unblemished by superhero crap for a reason. It makes keeping his job and now his family intact a whole hell of a lot easier. Some slick douchebag hitting a Starbucks for three hundred bucks on a Monday afternoon isn’t even really that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things. Especially considering what he’d been up to over the weekend.

Sam pulls his sunglasses from his pocket. He’d once threatened a guy in broad daylight while wearing these, act one of a lifelong movie spent following Captain America to the ends of the earth and back, kicking ass and taking names.

“Aw, shit,” he grumbles as he flicks his shades on, turning on his heel and following the guy out the door. The bell jangles noisily.

\- - -

Steve rolls up on the corner in their car with the top down, radio turned low and playing something from the 90s. Sam passes him his coffee before he gets in without bothering to open the door. “You’re sweaty,” Steve says blankly over his cup, looking up and down Sam like there’s a clue hidden somewhere. “You okay?”

“Aw, yeah, you know,” Sam says in quick dismissal, waving a hand back towards the Starbucks where everyone is still watching him in wonder from the windows. “Long lines get me all heated.”

\- - -

Miles is in the best mood they’ve ever seen him in when they pick him up from school. He jumps in the backseat and accepts his hot chocolate with a hungry noise of approval despite the heat, slurping it noisily and getting whipped cream on his nose.

“How’d your report go?” asks Steve with a grin, looking over his shoulder briefly. “And put your seatbelt on.”

Miles blatantly rolls his eyes at the fussing, clicking the belt over his lap but retaining his teenage title by putting his sneaker-clad feet up on the back of Sam’s chair. “Everybody rioted when I said Nick was gay for Gatsby,” he says lightly.

Steve makes a face. “What book were you reading?” he says, confused.

“The Great Gatsby,” Miles answers with a shrug.

“I’ve read that!” Steve says enthusiastically, turning in his seat again to offer his perplexed foster child a broad grin. Sam none-too-gently thumps his upper arm to remind him most people look forward when they’re driving.

“Everybody who’s ever gone to highschool has,” says Miles, nose scrunched up at what a nerd Steve is. He finally notices the cream and crosses his eyes to watch himself lick it off.

“Was wondering when you’d notice that, Rudolph,” laughs Sam.

“Ugh,” Miles says suddenly and Sam assumes it’s a noise of complaint over the tricky dribbles of cream until he speaks again. “What are you listening to?” he demands distastefully as he leans between the seats to ogle the radio.

“Jamiroquai, _Virtual Insanity_ ,” Sam says immediately, turning slightly against his seat belt to frown reproachfully at the teenager. “You don’t like the 90s?”

“I wasn’t even born yet,” Miles says in open exasperation, and drops back in his seat.

It’s the first time that Sam’s been the one to feel about a hundred years old. Seeing the look of horrified realization on his boyfriend’s face, Steve laughs until the song’s over and Miles demands they change it to Top 40 before he throws himself out of the car in retaliation.

Towards the end of their ride, Miles says, “My dad liked Soul for Real. That’s 90s, right?”

Steve and Sam exchange a short glance as Sam stirs up his stagnant coffee, clearing his throat slightly. “Yeah, they’re definitely 90s.”

\- - -

“Sharon,” Steve says in surprise when he answers the front door after dinner, finding Agent 13 and her girlfriend standing tensely on his stoop. “Director Hill,” he adds cautiously, noting how both women are flush-faced and bright-eyed like they’ve been arguing, their breathing tight and forcibly self-calming. He steps back and draws the door open further to welcome them despite his wary expression, quirking a half-smile as he nods for them to come inside. “We just finished dinner, but I’m sure Sam has something baked to snack on.”

Maria waves a hand as she passes him. “If it’s Maria when we’re drinking together, it’s Maria when I visit your house.”

“Fair enough,” chuckles Steve.

Sam comes out of the kitchen with a dishtowel shoved halfway into a damp glass. His expression goes from lightly curious about who may be paying them a visit to downright suspicious when he sees who it is. “Never good when y’all make house calls,” he says stiffly, frowning.

“Normally I’d debate that, but you’re on the nose with this one,” Maria says as she sweeps past him into the kitchen. Sharon offers Steve and Sam an apologetic smile, gathering her sling-held arm closer to herself as she shrugs.

“It’s been a long night,” she says.

\- - -

“Miles went out every night this weekend,” James says, slurping his coffee with ease despite the thick streams of steam billowing across his face. “Including last night.”

“It wasn’t him,” Steve and Sam answer in immediate unison.

James shrugs, setting the mug down on the bar. “I know.”

“Maybe it was his father,” Sam muses, turning away from the coffee maker with cups for himself and Steve. “It’s been a few months, he mighta cooled off, wised up, started pointing fingers in a better direction.” He passes Steve his cup and drinks from his own. “Done something about it.”

“And he’d try to murder his wife’s killer but not contact his son?” Steve asks dubiously and Sam just shrugs.

“I could try to find him,” James says quietly.

The following silence is uncomfortable as they all sip their coffee. It’s not the first time James has offered.

Sam is the first to break the quiet, sighing audibly and rubbing at his throbbing temples. The less substantial steam from his coffee soothes him only half as much as the weight of Steve’s gaze on his tensed shoulders. “Miles hasn’t touched the news since after the rally,” he says at last, fingers roving over his tidy facial hair. “Even when the story breaks, he won’t know until somebody else says something to him.”

Steve frowns, itching between his furrowed brows with his thumbnail. “You think we should tell him tonight?”

Sam’s smile is bitter as he admits, “We should. Not exactly bedtime-friendly conversation.” He groans openly, smoothing both palms over the top of his head as he leans into the bar and considers. “No other choice,” he says finally, “He deserves to know and we’re the ones who should tell him.”

Steve hides his apprehension by bringing his mug to his mouth. James pats him on one muscle-bulged shoulder.

The front door opens without a knock but with an intentional creak and all three men look up at once. Within a breath, Natasha is standing in the kitchen doorway, artfully draped against the frame and smiling politely.

“Changed my mind,” she says lightly.

“It’s for you this time, Megatron,” Sam says, reaching across the bar and slapping James on the shoulder.

\- - -

TO: youraimislame@emailwebsite.com

FROM: sirmilesofnyc@emailwebsite.com

Um hi.

We didn’t get to talk too much at school so.

Like I just wanted to say you have been the best girlfriend ever and I’ve prolly been really mean a lot lately and it means a lot that you put up with it mostly. I don’t want to be the kind of guy who just leans on his girlfriend and doesn’t say thank you. So thank you. I am totally leaning on you and you totally been holding me up because you are a bamf.

 And you’re an amazing kisser. I mean I don’t have a lot to compare it too but :)

You keep me sane Katie. You make all this feel normal even when you’re not around.

\- - -

Miles is laying on his bed with his upper body propped up against a pile of Avengers-cased pillows, his open laptop perched his stomach when Sam and Steve ask to talk. “Come in,” says Miles distractedly, his eyes intent on the screen. “One sec,” he adds when they come in, not looking up or easing up on his frown, “Lemme finish this.”

Steve immediately moves to sit at the too-small desk, cocking the chair towards the bed and fiddling with a cup full of pencils. Miles has slowly populated his room with personal things, posters and merch hanging all across the walls, his shelves filled with books and video games and knickknacks. Like any teenager’s room, there’s dirty clothes and discarded snack wrappers everywhere.

“Done,” Miles announces in a much lighter tone, slapping the laptop shut and pushing it aside so he can sit up.

“Got some pretty heavy news, little man,” Sam tells him gently. He sits down on the edge of the bed.

Miles doesn’t move, his half-smile frozen. “Did my dad come back?” he asks hoarsely.

Sam and Steve exchange a slow glance. “No, I’m sorry, nobody’s heard from him yet,” Sam says heavily, and Miles’s expression crumples before hardening into a small, anxious frown. “It’s the police officer that shot your mom. Somebody attacked him over the weekend. Burned up his house with him in it.”

“He’s in critical condition. They don’t think he’ll live long,” Steve murmurs from the desk.

“Who did it.” Miles doesn’t even make it a question.

“They don’t know. Probably a protestor got too riled up.” Sam swallows and lets his hand coast over Miles’s straightened knee, not quite patting or petting but not just resting his fingers either. Miles’s eyes are wide open now but expressionless, fixed on his ceiling like he’s watching something important or maybe not watching anything at all. “You’re probably feeling some pretty complicated stuff right now, Miles,” Sam continues heavily, “And that’s okay. Hate and anger… wanting him to die for what he’s done… that’s human.”

“Yeah, I know.” Miles’s eyes close and he pushes back into his pillows. He folds his knees, drawing his legs up to his chest so he can duck his face against them. “Is he – does it hurt?” he asks in a voice very different than his own.

“Probably a whole hell of a lot if he’s conscious,” says Steve.

Miles doesn’t say _good_ , he doesn’t say _it’s not enough_ , he doesn’t say anything. He wraps his arms around his legs and sits in silence until Sam and Steve finally rise to give him some privacy. “Sam?” he asks in his small voice, face lifting quickly.

Sam stops in the doorway and turns, Steve at his back.

“Can we visit my mom? My dad only brought me once before he left.”

Sam’s heart breaks into a thousand pieces and it’s only the warm appearance of Steve’s hand on his hip that keeps him from breezing away with it. “Yeah,” he says, his voice rough, “How ‘bout after school tomorrow?”

Miles nods and tucks in on himself again as they close the door.

\- - -

Steve goes downstairs to talk to James but Sam knows James has probably gone elsewhere with Nat. That he doesn’t immediately come back upstairs means he’s probably just beating his way through a couple of punching bags on his own. Sam leaves him to it and makes himself some more coffee.

When coffee doesn’t soothe him, he moves on to making bread and calling his mother, house phone tucked between his shoulder and his ear as he works.

“And they haven’t even charged him,” his mother tuts, a mixture of shocked awe and raw anger in her voice, strong and sharp as it’s ever been. “Lord, what that boy must be feeling right now.” Sam can hear the indistinct chatter of women and children in the background, and he smiles briefly despite the subject, knowing his sister and her bunch are keeping his mother’s house downright musical with the sound of family goings.

 “When things settle down –,” Sam starts, leaning his elbows on the bar.

“Oh don’t even start with all that,” his mother cuts him off testily, “I won’t see a damned hair on your head until Christmas and you know it. You’re too busy tearing ass across the country, beating up dragons and lunatics in spandex.”

Sam laughs and bows his head a little. “Nobody’s wearing spandex, that’s crazy. It’d get tore up too easy.”

“Hm,” hums his mother dubiously, and Sam laughs again.

It’s been less than an hour since they came down from Miles’s room when Sam’s call gets momentarily interrupted by a text alert on his phone informing him the backyard censors detect an intruder. He peeks out the window to see Kate trekking across the grass like she’s on a mission, marching over to the vine-wrapped trellis on the back of the house and climbing up with almost military-level precision and determination. He can’t see or hear what goes on upstairs but he knows Miles opens the window to let her inside.

“Sam?” his mother asks in obvious concern, “Baby, something wrong?”

“No ma’am,” Sam says easily, stepping back to check the bread, “It’s coming out great.”

\- - -

Nobody sleeps that night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many, many thanks to my wife for endless patience and coaching, and especially for suggesting music since I'm hopeless with that sort of thing. 
> 
> Hope everyone enjoyed their weekend. See you all next Monday!


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please be mindful of your personal well-beings, especially given recent events. This chapter deals with references to police brutality, social and legal injustices, and the dehumanizing of victims, AS WELL AS Miles mourning his mother. I'm actually very uncomfortable posting this chapter this week but too many people have asked me to update, so just make sure to take care of yourselves, alright?

James Barnes cases the room with half-lidded eyes, expression carefully schooled into a sluggish grin to match the feigned slur he speaks in, mouth mostly hidden by the flute of champagne he keeps close but never sips from. It’s a massive affair, no less than three hundred well-dressed people chatting and moving beneath massive glittering chandeliers, the open floor hemmed in by several tableclothed buffets.

“I’m gonna be honest with you, Nat,” James drawls, smoothing a greased strand of hair out of his face with his flesh-gloved false hand, fitting it neatly back into the slicked mess on his head, “When you said ‘come with me’, I had _very_ different expectations for tonight.”

Natasha offers him a prim smile from behind a pound of red lipstick to match the gorgeous splash of fabric rolling down her frame, eyes glittering with mischief behind dark contacts. “We’ve been over this, James,” she purrs, head tilting with a curtain of blonde hair framing her face; she gestures towards the ballroom with her own sparkling glass, “I’m the greatest spy in the world… I’ve got stuff to do.”

James smirks as he follows the exaggerated sweep of her arm, eyes fixing on the portly gentleman she’s casually signaling his attention to. “Guess you do,” he agrees with a grin, tossing back his champagne and dropping the glass so he can draw a startlingly large gun from the front of his jacket.

His target is dead before the glass shatters on the carpeted stair beneath him and everyone starts screaming.

Natasha surges forward, leaving her high heels behind for easier mobility, leaping up on the white-garbed tables and running with the same smooth, unhesitating power of a panther on the hunt. Her feet dodge intricate displays of food and small ice sculptures without her eyes leaving her target once.

James saunters down the stairs, pausing to get another glass of champagne from a trembling server’s silver tray.

Nat leaps off the table and catches her target – the young man that had stood beside his mark – by the back of the neck, using his falling body to swing around and resituate herself on her feet. When he tries to crawl forward, she flexes her bared thigh and kicks him between the shoulders, electricity lighting up the circuitry on her leg and zapping him unconscious.

She grabs a cracked glass from the edge of the table and raises it in James’s direction; he lifts his own and says, “Fuck HYDRA.”

They drop their glasses without drinking when armed security comes pouring in from all sides, both brandishing their guns as chaos breaks in a thunderous burst of gunfire.

\- - -

There’s a garden of respects taking up residence on Rio Morales’s grave. Fake bouquets and dying flowers, candles burned down to nothing but greasy residue inside pretty glass holders, a framed picture of Morales standing between the cop and Spider-Man in pixelated grayscale from the released security footage. Miles ignores all of it and stares at the gravestone, and Sam stares at Miles.

It’s not a big surprise the protestors found her grave, the grass still sitting uneasy where it was put over freshly churned dirt. When someone’s death inspires a movement, their memory no longer belongs to just the family’s grief; it’s something that’s always made Sam uneasy, doubly so after he came back from overseas.

But Miles doesn’t get angry, he doesn’t kick all of it away or rage about how none of these people knew his mother. He just tiptoes through the mess and crouches in front of the headstone. He trails his fingers along the rivets that spell out her name, expression reverent as he shapes the letters.

“You got a memory you’re thinking about?” asks Sam lightly, hands in his pockets.

Miles’s mouth quirks into a frown at the corner, hard and bitter. “I was so mad when she taught me how to write my name because hers was shorter. I started just writing M I L on all my stuff to get back at her.” He curls his fingers in, tapping his knuckles on the flat circle inside the O. “She kept calling me Mil until I quit.”

Sam smiles and shifts his weight between his feet. “How long did that take?”

“A few days?” Miles guesses, but his frown is drifting into something softer, easier on his young features. “Before Abuela died, my mom showed her a buncha stuff I drew. Abuela was old, she got confused and thought it was really my name.” He draws his knuckles away from the stone and drags them across his nose fitfully. “She called me that until she died."

Miles’s fingers curl further, nails gritting against the stone, and he sucks in a breath, visibly struggling not to break down in front of Sam.

“Hey,” Sam says softly, drawing his hands out of his pockets and fishing his keys out of his jacket for the jingle, “I think I left the car unlocked. I’m gonna head back down to the parking lot. You take a little bit, alright?” When Miles nods tightly, Sam soothingly adds, “No rush.”

Miles exhales and leans his forehead against cool stone as soon as he’s gone.

“Miss you, Mom,” he mumbles, voice rasped and hitching. He pushes his face harder against the headstone like maybe he can press through and find himself in heaven beyond it. He chokes on a noiseless sob, hands falling to the stone base to support himself when he wobbles, and suddenly he’s jerking back and staring at his palm.

A tiny gold cross draped from a matching chain, spilling between his fingers like rain down a blade of grass, glistening in the sunlight: his mom’s favorite piece of jewelry. The only one she wore every day without fail.

The one his father had taken with him when he left.

\- - -

Miles fidgets through the entirety of dinner and feigns exhaustion to get out of watching a movie with them afterwards. Steve can hear him pacing upstairs in his bedroom, likely debating the logistics of sneaking out when they’re actually home and wide awake. Sam coaxes Steve into a round of Mario Party Wii – volume jacked up loud enough to blanket their chatter – and kicks his ass like he always does. Bucky drifts into the room halfway through their second go to drink coffee directly from the pot and trash talk at Sam on Steve’s behalf.

A little while after nine, Steve stops hearing the pacing beneath the television’s din.

“Just tell him we know,” Bucky growl-says, wiping at his eye and smearing his makeup into a spectacular mess around his left lid. “We could put a tracer on him.”

“It’s his secret to keep, Buck,” disagrees Steve with a shake of his head. He’s so used to the glasses now that he knows how to hold his head as he bounces around so as not to jostle them. “Fury seems to think his dad left because he figured out what Miles had been up to. The last thing I want to do is spook him.”

“This is just sad,” Sam says as Steve fucks up again. “I feel like I broke into the senior’s home and started beatin’ on old people.”

“They’d put up a better fight,” Bucky says.

“Aren’t you supposed to be on my side?” Steve demands as he turns away from the tv and glares, panting not out of need but out of frustration.

“Sam’s brownies are almost done,” Bucky says from behind the rim of the pot.

\- - -

The apartment is exactly as it was when Miles left.

He can tell Kate’s been here in the meantime, wrappers for her protein bars in the trashcan and the smell of her spritz lingering everywhere without the central air on. She’s been siphoning money from her father and paying off the rent so the space isn’t passed to a new tenant – insisting he’s rich enough that a few hundred dollars a month disappearing aren’t going to be noticed – and occasionally stopping by after school to check for signs that Miles’s father might have changed his mind and come back.

The furniture is all intact even if most of the personal belongings are gone. Miles pulls off his mask and walks along the carpet, faintly aware of how three months’ time without occupants has left the carpet musty with untracked dust.

But it’s still not as thick as he would have imagined it to be, not even on the coffee table and empty shelves. He had come inside expecting his old life to be covered beneath a thick blanket of gray snow, put to bed like grass in the wintertime. Hidden. Unrecognizable.

Instead, it just looks like it’s moving day, and his mom’s in another room taping up the last of the framed pictures no longer hanging in the hallway, his dad maybe outside complaining about the size of the truck they rented and how it’ll take ten trips to move all their things.

And Miles will be sad to see another apartment go but he’ll be excited to decorate his new room with his dad angrily muttering about his Avengers posters and his mom smiling as she helps Miles pin them all up. And they’ll order pizza at the new place so Mom doesn’t have to cook, sitting on the couch in a sea of stacked boxes and sharing memories about their old apartment.

Miles will go to sleep in his new room surrounded by familiar belongings and his mother will sit on the edge of his bed and tell him, “Change is always good, baby. Don’t you ever be afraid of starting over. It’s a new chance to make yourself even better.”

But Miles was never afraid of starting over, because she’d always been there to help him.

And now she’s not.

\- - -

Sam sits down in his office and stares tensely at the framed pictures he’s accumulated, one hand rubbing over the whisper of stubble spilling out around his meticulously trimmed mustache and beard. It’s a lot harder to make time for the finer things in life like a morning shave when bothyour super soldier boyfriend and your foster kid who moonlights as a superhero didn’t bother sleeping the night before. Sam had spent his entire morning on their heels, encouraging them to get dressed, get their things together, get some food in their mouths, and get out the door before everyone was late.

Not that Steve had anywhere of importance to be; without a mission in need of the blonde dorito in blue, Steve was off the hook responsibility-wise until something else was blown up or got taken hostage. Which was all well and good for him: Sam had about ten years worth of paperwork to finish and a dozen calls to make before lunch alone, then two group sessions to finagle with some of his most jaded Vets.

He scrubs at his eyes and ducks his head, trying to get his head back in the game, but Miles is the only thing he can think of when he finishes groaning and lifts his face again. Miles, probably falling asleep in class right now, mother six feet under and father MIA.

He shakes the mouse to stir his computer awake and opens Skype, a slight grin catching the corner of his mouth when he sees Trip online. It takes two rings but Antoine answers, in an office of his own with substantially less personal items. “Hey, Sam,” Antoine says, leaning closer to the camera with a smile, his voice warm with recognition, “Been a whole three days. Aren’t you supposed to be doing your civilian job right now?”

Sam grins, licking the gap between his teeth in feigned bashfulness at being caught not doing work. “You know me,” he says, leaning back in his chair and letting it recline with his weight, “Master of the multitask.”

Antoine laughs and raises his hands. “So you are. You got a favor to ask?”

“Yeah,” Sam says, sobering while also smiling wider, because Trip’s always been intuitive without being smug. In a world shared with Tony Stark it’s nice to be friends with someone who isn’t an asshole about being both observant and useful. “You got a secure connection we can talk on?”

\- - -

“Wow,” says Maria as Steve comes into her office, her expression carefully mild despite the obvious annoyance on his face and tight in his shoulders, “Two visits to SHIELD HQ in less than a month, this is a record for you.” Her mouth quirks as removes her gaze from the data panels roving across the glass surface of her desk, teasing, “Considering coming back to us full time?”

“I want to know the rest of it.”

Maria frowns, tapping the desk screen with a fingertip to dismiss the files entirely. “I told you everything last night, Steve.”

“C’mon, Maria,” Steve says with a bitter smile, “We _both_ know that’s bullshit.”

Maria licks her lips consideringly and sits up, squaring her small shoulders and lifting her chin. “If you had doubts about the information I gave you, why didn’t you ask me last night?”

“Because Sam was there,” Steve says plainly.

Maria smiles and shakes her head. “Steve, no one is trying to hide anything from Sam. His access level might not be official but neither is yours – neither of you are in SHIELD employ.”

“No, but I’m still an Avenger on the books,” Steve says dryly, his smile unkind, “Sam’s just a civilian. And a civilian being present is the perfect excuse to withhold information. Bet it checks out great on your paperwork.”

Hurt and irritated, Maria stands, folding her arms across her chest and fixing her gaze on his. “What is it you think I’m hiding, Steve? I came to you and Sam as a courtesy, because I thought you should know before the media did.”

The bitterness in Steve’s smile goes downright sour, aggression and agitation in every line of his face. “I think you’re hiding whatever it is you’re trying to protect by fishing for what I’m most curious about.” Maria watches him evenly, not responding, so Steve continues. “I know this spy game, Maria. You’re assessing which scraps of truth you can afford to give up to hide the real meat.”

“You’re my friend,” Maria says sharply.

“And you’re also the Director of SHIELD. You’ve got to value your secrets over your friends; that’s why Coulson didn’t last long but you have.”

Maria offers him a frigid smile. “Maybe a little too long.”

Steve snorts and shakes his head, dragging a hand through his plush hair. “Fine, I’ll play ball. Why did SHIELD know Thomas Whitman was attacked?”

Maria swallows at his lack of relenting and looks down for a moment, gathering herself and squaring her shoulders again before looking at him. “Don’t you mean ‘how’?”

“No,” says Steve.

“Whitman murdered your son’s mother,” Maria answers quietly, her eyes searching his face thoughtfully, “I’m surprised you don’t think that’s reason enough.”

“This is SHIELD, it’s never enough,” growls Steve, but he breaks eye contact anyway. “What did Fury tell you about Miles?”

“Nothing.” Maria’s fingertips splay on her desk as she leans into it. “Nothing, Steve. I swear to you. Miles was all Nick. Beyond putting pressure on OCFS and burying his history, SHIELD hasn’t been within a mile of him.”

Steve turns back towards her sharply, exasperation and anger burning his eyes bright. “And I’m supposed to believe that?”

“Yes,” says Maria, “Because as far as I know, it’s the truth.”

\- - -

They’re at a gas station on the way home – Steve standing at the pump and his guys inside raiding the snack shelves at Miles’s insistence – when Steve’s phone goes off in his jacket pocket. The music is muffled, but Steve recognizes it’s _You Got a Friend in Me_ , the ringtone he’d unironically chosen for his best friend.

“Steve,” James says as soon as the line picks up, “There’s a fuckin’ circus outside of the house right now. Television people asking for you two and the kid.”

Steve goes still for half a heartbeat before quickly moving to hang up the nozzle and flip through his wallet for his card, swiping it as he tucks the phone between his ear and shoulder. “Are we compromised?” he asks sharply.

“Nah, they’re asking for The Wilsons.”

Relief spreads like a tangible warmth in Steve’s chest. He raises a hand when he sees Sam glance at him through the wall-length window, gesturing sharply for him to come back to the car. “Keep them off the lawn,” he instructs as he replaces the gas cap and gets back into the car. “This is about the cop, isn’t it,” he guesses agitatedly.

“It sure ain’t about your flowerbeds,” says James.

“Where are you?” Steve asks, winding his hand to urge Sam and Miles back towards the car faster. Miles looks irritated, shouldering a plastic bag bulging with chips and candy and an oversized slurpee.

“The house, just got home about ten minutes ago,” James says with wry amusement. “Look, just get back here, alright? This whole thing’s kinda freaking me out.”

\- - -

The street is swarming with people toting cameras and microphones when they get there. Vans branded with news station and newspaper logos occupy every available space along the sidewalk and Steve has to honk continuously before one of them pulls out from in front of their short driveway so he can park the car.

At first Sam thinks maybe it’s because of his little Starbucks stunt, but the second they get close enough to hear the clamor of voices, it turns out to be much, much worse.

“Are you a suspect in Thomas Whitman’s attack?” demands a woman with big hair and an even bigger mouth, her cameraman jamming his boompole so close to the car as they pull past that it almost hits Miles in the head. Sam unbuckles and turns in his seat, a protective arm coming up to shield Miles’s ducked frame.

Most of the questions are directed at Miles (“Have you attended any of the riots downtown?” “Has Spider-Man contacted you?” “Did you attack Thomas Whitman?” “Was your mother involved in an affair with Spider-Man?” “What’s the nature of your father’s disappearance?”) but the occasional question is shouted at Steve or Sam.

James comes outside as they park and situates himself at the foot of the driveway, dissuading most of the press to stay off their property. “I’ve already warned you,” he growls at a particularly pushy guy with a comb-over, lifting an arm like he’s going to bodily shove him from the line between their yard and the sidewalk.

“Get him inside,” Sam says loudly to Steve. Steve sheds his leather jacket and comes around the car to help Miles out, his voice low and soothing as he blocks him from the constant flash of cameras with his coat. It’s so loud Sam can’t even hear what he’s saying, but Miles huddles close to him and they hustle to the front door. Sam jogs down the drive to help James keep everyone out of his yard.

There’s a surge of movement as the people gathered on the sidewalk – holding their cameras and microphones higher to catch a glimpse – start leaning over the fence, shouting questions in a last-ditch effort for some content.

Sam and James fall back from the crowd as soon as Steve and Miles are inside. “They’ve been here for an hour,” James mumbles as he walks, shoving a hand into his hair. “Guess even SHIELD couldn’t keep the press from finding out where he’s staying.”

“Fucking vultures,” Sam spits out even though he knows they can’t hear him, unblinking against the constant barrage of flashes that follow them. “A Puerto Rican woman gets gunned down in broad daylight, nothin’. A racist white cop gets busted up and y’all got questions.”

\- - -

Miles doesn’t touch the cooling food on his full plate, staring resolutely at nothing with a tiny line between his eyebrows, entirely silent for the duration of dinner. “You want to set up a fort?” Steve asks hopefully when it becomes obvious this isn’t going to change, but Miles shakes his head and gets up, leaving his plate behind and running upstairs.

James pats Steve’s shoulder consolingly when Miles’s bedroom door slams shut.

\- - -

The night air stirs hot and restless through Ganke’s dark hair, disturbing the trickle of sweat on his temple. He paws at the dampness restlessly as he watches the city skyline, huddled on the sloped edge of his roof, pajama-clad legs tucked up against his chest within the circle of his arm.

When Spider-Man sweeps silently out of nowhere and lands quietly at Ganke’s side, neither of them move for a long moment, Spider-Man crouched and panting against the fabric of his mask.

“I need you to find him, Ganke,” Miles says at last, rising from his squat but not drawing his hood off.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Ganke mumbles uncomfortably, fat bare toes curling against the shingles.

“You’re my best friend,” Miles says.

Ganke ducks his head in shame, but glances up at his costumed friend from the corners of his eyes. “He’s gonna die anyway,” he tries lamely, his voice muffled by how he’s tucked in on himself. “The news said he’s on his _deathbed_ , Miles.”

Miles’s hands curl into fists at his sides. “But he’s not dead yet. Find out which hospital he’s at, or I’m just gonna check them all.”

Ganke’s teeth press into his lower lip and he gnaws on the flesh for a long moment. “Okay, I’ll look,” he finally relents.

Miles nods tightly and raises an arm, webbing shooting free in a glistening burst that disappears into the dull lamplight darkness, and steps off the edge of the roof.

Ganke curls in against his knees again, watching him go.


End file.
